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.
LYSANDER Be not afraid. She shall not harm thee, Helena.
DEMETRIUS No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
HELENA O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd.
She was a vixen when she went to school;
And though she be but little, she is fierce. (3.2.318-325)
Hermia’s Not Bothered: go then! LEAVE! why, get you gone! Who is’t that hinders you? No one’s stopping you! What are you waiting for? Helena can’t help it: a foolish heart, that I leave here behind, that’s what’s stopping me, she wails. What, with Lysander? Hermia can’t believe it; really? With Demetrius, of course! Not your stupid bloody boyfriend, I don’t want anything to do with him! And Demetrius is being so WEIRD too, but, old habits die hard… Hermia’s apparently looking physically threatening: be not afraid, Lysander reassures Helena, she shall not harm thee, Helena. I will protect you! (He’s not concerned in the slightest that Helena’s just disavowed having any interest in him whatsoever.) Demetrius bristles; another challenge to his primacy with Helena: no, sir, she shall not, though you take her part. I’M the one protecting Helena from Hermia, even if Lysander comes in on her side. (And he addresses Lysander, not Helena; his concern seems still to be more for his supposed rival than for Helena herself.) That Hermia is indeed trying to get to Helena seems confirmed by what the latter says next, which is adding fuel to the fire indeed: O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd. TERRIBLE temper, and so SLY, really underhand and deceitful. She was a vixen when she went to school—an absolute bitch when we were growing up, not to put too fine a point on it, and a cunning little one at that. And though she be but little, she is fierce: believe it or not, a capacity for extreme violence is wrapped up in that tiny package. Oh yes.
