Helena, one of the main characters of this Shakespearean comedy, expresses her thoughts on love through a soliloquy. This soliloquy is written in verse and in “iambic pentameter” - five unaccented syllables, each followed by an accented one - as the rest of the play is, but with the characteristic that it rhymes. The soliloquy is composed of “heroic couplets” - rhyming verse in iambic pentameter- in opposition to “blank verse” - unrhymed iambic pentameter- which is the predominant type of verse in the play. Helena’s soliloquy, formed, as mentioned before, by heroic couplets, follows the rhyme scheme AABBCC as can be seen in this extract:
“Things base and vile, folding no quantity, (A)
Love can transpose to form and dignity: (A)
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; (B)
And therefore is wing 'd Cupid painted blind: (B)
Nor hath Love 's mind of any judgement taste; (C)
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste” (C) One
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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.”
RELATION WITH THE EVENTS ON THE PLAY
Helena’s soliloquy takes place in the first act and first scene of the play, right after we are introduced to the general plot: Hermia, daughter of Egeus is to be married to Demetrius but she is in love with Lysander who corresponds her.
However, her father Egeus, doesn’t like Lysander for his daughter and so, both him and Theseus, the Duke of Athens, offer Hermia three options: to either marry Demetrius (who she doesn’t love), to become a nun or to be executed. Hermia, a proud character, says she loves Lysander and that she would rather become a nun than marry