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Approaching voices are heard. Oberon makes himself invisible as Demetrius and Helena enter. They are in the midst of a quarrel. Remember, Helena had told Demetrius of Lysander and Hermia\'s elopement plan. But he\'s interested in finding them, not in dealing with Helena. He\'ll kill the man; the woman is killing him. He commands Helena to go away; he is \"wood\" (mad) in the wood. But how can Helena go? She is drawn to him as though he were a magnet. If he could stop drawing her, she could stop being drawn. It\'s a double bind, appropriate to the topsy-turvy, blind nature of love.
Demetrius tells her in the plainest possible terms that he does not and cannot love her. But Helena even loves his honesty in telling her that! She\'s more than humble at this point--she\'s humiliated. She\'ll be his spaniel. He can do whatever he wants with her as long as he does something with her.
We\'re back to opposites in love. Demetrius becomes ill from looking at Helena; Helena becomes ill from not looking at Demetrius. He tries a new tack: she is seriously endangering her precious virginity by following him in the forest. Helena twists his words. She is very good at that--her literary cleverness rarely misses an opportunity to turn a phrase around. She explains that since he is all the world to her, she is not really alone with him in the woods.
Demetrius gives up. All he can think of now is to run away and leave her at the mercy of wild beasts. The wildest of those, Helena points out, is not as heartless as he. The tables will turn, she warns prophetically. Demetrius tells her once again to leave him alone, and exits. Helena declares she\'s not afraid of any harm to come at his hands; she\'s already been hurt. Poor Helena. Her situation is at once comic and tragic. Her desperate gropings for love are ridiculous, but painful. The whole reality of romance and the proper relations to it are being questioned by Shakespeare. Men are supposed to woo women, says Helena, but she finds herself in the opposite position. The way things should be and the way they shouldn\'t change places in this play. Good and bad, love, life and death are all mixed up for Helena. \"I\'ll follow thee,\" she says, \"and make a heaven of hell, / To die upon the hand I love so well.\"
Overseeing her predicament, Oberon decides to intercede. Puck arrives with the magic flower and gives it to his master. Oberon goes into a dreamy soliloquy, one of the most beautiful passages in all of Shakespeare\'s works, filled with glorious language and an almost sentimental remorse. He describes a favorite place of Titania\'s. It is a bank covered in flowers, and the Queen likes to sleep there, \"lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.\" The snake sheds its skin there, and that skin is \"wide enough to wrap a fairy in.\" Such delicate details give us more than an idea of the size of the fairy folk; they give us a feeling for the sweet enchantment of their world. But Oberon is not just having a sweet dream. He has a vengeful purpose. If that\'s where Titania is likely to be, that\'s where she will be given the magic love juice on her eyes. Oberon also commands Puck to put some juice on the eyes of the Athenian youth he has just seen. He cautions Puck to do it at just the right moment, so that the first thing the young man sees will be the lady who is in love with him. The king would see some things turn out right--or is he just as eager as Puck to turn the world upside down?
NOTE: TITANIA\'S RESTING PLACE Does the way Shakespeare describe the favorite place of Titania make you want to sleep there yourself, surrounded by its beauty? Shakespeare entices you with great economy of language. The very names of the flowers seem to emit some special power. The thyme blows in the wind, sending its pungent scent around the bank. The violet nods its delicate head. The woodbine (\"luscious\" makes it seem good to eat as well as to see and smell) forms a canopy over it all, and the musk roses are sweet. To help feel the magic of this passage you might say these words aloud. \"Wild thyme,\" \"oxlips,\" \"nodding violet,\" \"luscious woodbine,\" \"sweet musk roses,\" and \"eglantine\" roll across the tongue with what seems to be a magic power.
With a leap Puck is off on his mission. He\'ll be back before the first rooster can crow. By then, midsummer madness will be in full sway.
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