HELENA And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel, and Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, loose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love
(And yet a place of high respect with me)
Than to be used as you use your dog? (2.1.202-210)
Sisterly interventions are called for, have clearly been needed for some time, but Helena’s far gone, driven to extremes by a situation at least partly of her own making. (Although she can’t help her stupid, foolhardy heart.) And even for that do I love you the more: I love you because you don’t love me, that’s where we’re at now. The less you love me, the more I love you; it has its own logic even as it’s utterly illogical, an extreme version of the karmic bargaining to which all humans can be prone, if I make myself smaller, quieter, cleverer, stupider, braver, cooler, THEN will you love me back? THEN will I be loveable? As if it couldn’t get any more cringeworthy (and distressing), an ill-advised metaphor: I am your spaniel, and Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you. (This was thought to be an attribute of spaniels in particular; here it adds to the pathos and the ridiculousness, big eyes, floppy ears, massive paws.) Use me but as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me, neglect me, loose me; only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you. No matter how badly you treat me, how cruel and abusive as you are, so long as you let me follow you, that’s OK. I deserve all the bad things. (HELENA.) I’m at rock bottom anyway, is part of this, so how much worse could it be, to be actually physically ill-treated by you? What worser place can I beg in your love (and yet a place of high respect with me) than to be used as you use your dog?
Hard to play, and increasingly so, because it’s so extreme; to play it for laughs means laughing at the possibility of abuse, to play it entirely for real makes Helena pathetic, snivelling, weak, and/or a disturbing gaslit victim. I do increasingly think that most of Shakespeare’s young lovers need to be taken aside and asked, and when did you last get a decent sleep? and something proper to eat? and then given some toast and a nice cup of tea. Where’s Hippolyta when the young women of Athens need her? (Or TITANIA, now that would be a great plot twist.)
