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.            (2.1.220-228)

Helena’s not listening, or else she’s naïve to the point of stupidity, or else she cannot believe that her beloved Demetrius would be anything other than her knight in shining armour, rather than a cynical, opportunistic rapist-in-waiting. Your virtue is my privilege—I trust you completely!—for that it is not night when I do see your face. You are my sunshine! How can it be night when I’m with you? 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. This sounds like an offcut of Romeo and Juliet (or indeed Richard II): you light up my life, so how can it be dark? And you are all the world to me; I can never be alone when I’m with you! Then how can it be said I am alone, when all the world is here to look on me? You’re here, and so I don’t need anyone else. You’re the whole world to me. Poor Helena, she’s read so many love stories… Demetrius can defuse the tension slightly by very clearly giving up, look, I’ll just abandon you then, I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, you won’t be able to follow me or find me, I can do CAMOUFLAGE, I was a SCOUT, and, and, I’ll leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts! You will be eaten by, by a LION! a bear, a deer, a fox, a savage badger. Something awful.