Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/220

 Hermia and Lysander are in love with each other. Demetrius, who was once deep in love for Helena, has transferred his midsummer inclination to this Hermia, leaving Helena as deep in love with him as ever, but finding Hermia full of disdain. Now Hermia's father would have her marry Demetrius; so she and Lysander, to escape from this paternal preference, agree to meet at night, and fly together from Athens to a darling old aunt who lived at some Hellenic Gretna Green. At this point, Helena enters, who loves Demetrius as much as he now dislikes her. The lovers confide to her their purpose of flight; and Hermia, for comfort, says that she will soon be beyond the reach of Demetrius. Then Helena is left alone to her reflections, during which she says,—

"For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight: Then to the wood will he to-morrow night Pursue her: and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense: But herein mean I to enrich my pain, To have his sight thither and back again."

Coleridge frames, in a criticism upon this passage, a sweeping indictment of the feminine disposition. Starting with a misconception of the text, he appends to it a statement that does not seem to me accordant with the facts.

He attributes to Helena a "broad determination of ungrateful treachery," and then adds: "The act itself is