HELENA         I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,

Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;

I have no gift at all in shrewishness.

I am a right maid for my cowardice:

Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think

Because she is something lower than myself,

That I can match her.

HERMIA                     Lower? Hark again.   (3.2.299-305)

Helena’s response pours fuel on the fire, whether it’s genuine fear leading her to appeal for protection to Lysander and Demetrius, or else a knowingly performed feminine weakness. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, let her not hurt me. She’s still apparently thinking that the men are playing a trick on her, pretending to love her—there’s pathos in that, she still doesn’t see herself as lovable?—but she would like them to intervene as it’s all getting badly out of hand. But it misfires in her determination to claim the moral high ground with some excellent passive aggression: I was never curst, I’m no good at fighting, at terrible insults, not like HER! I have no gift at all in shrewishness. I’m a good girl, a nice girl! Not a fighter! I mind my language, too. And I am a right maid for my cowardice: let her not strike me. (Hermia might be looking very much as if she’s about to add physical violence to verbal.) But Helena can’t resist another jab; the shrinking violet stuff is, perhaps, an act, and she’s not fighting fair: you perhaps may think because she is something lower than myself, that I can match her. Just because I’m taller than her you might think I’d have an advantage in a fight. Not at all! (Did I mention that she’s SHORT?) That’s all Hermia hears: lower? Hark again. Did you HEAR that, she can’t help herself, can she? All that prim and proper damsel in distress stuff, that’s just an ACT. Helena fights, and she fights DIRTY.