Page 2680 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Let her not hurt me. I was never curst; [300]
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
I am a right maid for my cowardice;
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her,

HERMIA

‘Lower’? Hark, again! [305]

HELENA

Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,
Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong’d you,
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
I told him of your stealth unto this wood. [310]
He follow’d you; for love I follow’d him;
But he hath chid me hence, and threaten’d me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back, [315]
And follow you no further. Let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.

HERMIA

Why, get you gone! Who is’t that hinders you?

HELENA

A foolish heart that I leave here behind.

HERMIA

What! with Lysander?

HELENA

With Demetrius. [320]

LY SANDER

Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.

DEMET RIUS