HELENA.
Your virtue is my privilege: for that
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS.
I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA.
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be chang’d;
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin, the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger. Bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies!
DEMETRIUS.
I will not stay thy questions. Let me go,
Or if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
HELENA.
Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
We cannot fight for love as men may do.
We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo.
[Exit Demetrius.]
I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
[Exit Helena.]
OBERON.
Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Enter Puck.