HELENA But who is here? Lysander, on the ground?
Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
LYSANDER [Wakes.] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
Transparent Helena, nature shows art,
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword! (2.2.104-111)
As Helena pauses for breath in her self-pitying lament, she notices something (although not everything, because it’s DARK; the crucial thing is that she doesn’t see Hermia): but who is here? Lysander, on the ground? What’s going on, is something wrong? Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound. (Proper Miss Marple stuff; perhaps part of her would like this to turn into a murder mystery at this point, as a distraction.) Worth trying to wake him, then: Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake. Wake up and show me you’re OK, and tell me what’s going on? (I like to think she gives him just a little bit of a kick?) Then one of the play’s BEST couplets, given even more impact because Helena’s previous lines have included quite a lot of half rhymes, but this one is slap-bang-stichomythic, completing the couplet and answering Helena’s simple request for information with a passionate protestation: and run through fire I will for thy sweet sake. Oh, BABY. I’ll do ANYTHING for you! (Instantly, on waking, no questions, no notes, that’s what makes it so perfect.) Then he just keeps going: transparent Helena (what? virtuous, radiant; the silliness, vague preposterousness is most of the point), nature shows art, that through thy bosom makes me see thy heart. You’re absolutely perfect, the most beautiful girl in the world, the most skilful creation of nature—and I see you, I see your loveliness! It’s word-salad, all the right noises, only some of the right words, but the impression is of passionate devotion, and Helena is allowed to crumple just a bit, because these are the sorts of things she’s longed to hear from Demetrius… Where is Demetrius, though? Now Lysander is having another thought in that tiny, tiny brain: o, how fit a word is that vile name to perish on my sword! Demetrius is my RIVAL, and he’s been being so cruel to you! I will STAB him!
