od in Helena is
blind to the faults in himself and in Parolles his friend. Wilfully, as
the sullen do, he thinks himself justified in doing evil because evil
has been done to him. Hot blood is running in him. Temptation, never far
from youth, is always near the unbalanced. He takes an unworthy
confidant, as the obsessed do, and goes in over the ears. His sin is
the giving of salutation to sportive blood, it is love, it is "natural
rebellion," it is young man's pastime. But looked at coldly and
judicially, with the nature of the confidant laid bare, and the lies of
the sinner made plain, it is an ugly thing. Passion is sweet enough to
seem truth, the only truth. Let the eyes be opened a little, and it will
blast the heart with horror. What man thought true is then seen to be
this, this thing, this devil of falseness who gives man this kind of
friend, makes him tell this kind of lie, and brands him with this kind
of shame.

Shakespeare is just to Bertram. The treachery of a woman is often the
cause of a man's treachery to womanhood. Helena's obsession of love
makes her blind to the results of her actions. She twice puts the man
whom she loves into an intolerable position, which nothing but a king
can end. The fantasy is not made so real that we can believe in the
possibility of happiness between two so married. Helena has been praised
as one of the noblest of Shakespeare's women. Shakespeare saw her more
clearly than any man who has ever lived. He saw her as a woman who
practises a borrowed art, not for art's sake, nor for charity, but,
woman fashion, for a selfish end. He saw her put a man into a position
of ignominy quite unbearable, and then plot with other women to keep him
in that position. Lastly, he saw her beloved all the time by the
conventionally minded of both sexes.

The play is full of effective theatrical situations. It contains much
fine poetry. Besides the poetry there are startling moments of insight--

"My mother told me just how he would woo
As if she sat in's heart...."

"Now, God delay our rebellion! as we are ourselves,
What things are we! Merely our own traitors."

"I would gladly have him see his company anatomised,
That he might take a measure of his own judgments."

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together."

"Our rash faults
Make trivial price of serious things we have,
Not knowing them until we