LYSANDER     O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence:

Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.

I mean that my heart unto yours it knit,

So that but one heart we can make of it:

Two bosoms interchained with an oath,

So then two bosoms, and a single troth.

Then by your side no bed-room me deny;

For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.     (2.2.49-56)

Lysander’s not giving up yet, and has another go at dazzling Hermia with LOGIC as well as PASSIONATE PROTESTATION: O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence, I wouldn’t DREAM of suggesting anything improper, don’t take it the wrong way, for love takes the meaning in love’s conference. I love you, you love me, and so we understand each other perfectly, never imagining that the other could be anything other than well-meaning! (The lover doth protest too much, methinks.) I mean—mansplaining incoming, it’s practically SCIENCE—that my heart unto yours it knit, our hearts are joined together by love, so that but one heart we can make of it; it’s like we share a single heart! (Pause for heart gesture? love you, babe.) Two bosoms interchained with an oath, we’ve made promises, vows, that unite us already, so then two bosoms, and a single troth. One heart in two bodies; we’re practically married already. (And many in an early modern audience would agree that, in law, this might well be the case.) Then by my side no bed-room me deny, please, please, please, let me sleep—next—to you? cuddle up? For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie. I’m as true as a true thing, and I wouldn’t ever deceive you.

Lysander’s not being particularly coercive in his valiant but transparent attempt at sophistry, it’s too obviously charming in its patterns and repetitions, and oddly innocent in its optimism and opportunism. The contrast with Demetrius is, for the moment at least, a stark one.