Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's learning on The Power of Love.

So for today you will need your trusted pen and your paper by your side for me, please.

Take a moment to clear away any of those distractions that might stop that perfect learning environment.

So when you've got that lovely quiet space and you're ready, let's begin.

When we look at The Power of Love today, we're going to particularly focus on our four Athenian lovers who are in our Magical Forest.

And we want to begin by reminding ourselves of who loves who, because Puck has placed the love potion on Lysander, therefore who loved who in Athens has now changed.

So let's begin by reminding ourselves after Puck uses the love potion on Lysander, who is in love with who.

So we have Hermia, who loves Lysander.

Lysander who loves Helena, that's a change.

Demetrius who loves Hermia and Helena who loves Demetrius.

So we can reinforce this with arrows of who loves who, and I've put one of those arrows in bold and blue to show that that's a change from what we have at the beginning of the play.

So Hermia loves Lysander but now Lysander doesn't love her back.

So Hermia is suffering from unrequited love.

Lysander loves Helena.

Helena doesn't love him back.

So Lysander is suffering from unrequited love.

Helena loves Demetrius, Demetrius doesn't love her back, so Helena is suffering from unrequited love.

Demetrius loves Hermia and surprise, surprise Hermia doesn't love Demetrius back, so Demetrius is suffering from unrequited love.

So due to Puck using the love potion on Lysander by mistake, because he followed Oberon's instructions of an Athenian man, someone who is wearing Athenian clothes, and he saw that Lysander and Hermia were sleeping apart.

He mistakenly put the love potion on Lysander and it has caused some chaos because who loves who has changed, and now rather than only Helena and Demetrius suffering from unrequited love, now, all four Athenian lovers are suffering from unrequited love.

So the love potion in the Magical Forest, it has had an impact on our characters.

It's had an impact on our lovers and it's had an impact on Titania.

So to Titania, as a result of the love potion is in love with Bottom, our fool, our ass.

Lysander, as a result of the love potion is in love with Helena and is suffering from unrequited love.

Whereas before he loved Hermia, Hermia loved him and they were running away together to get married outside of Athenian law, outside of Athens.

So therefore we can say that the love potion has caused chaos, confusion, and conflict.

The three Cs, chaos, confusion, and conflict, because Titania is in love with Bottom.

And as a result, she suffers humiliation because she's in love with an ass and thinks that he is both beautiful and wise and he's neither.

And Oberon has got revenge, or is aiming to get revenge on to Titania by humiliating her and focusing her attention on her new love that has been inflicted because of the love potion, and therefore will get revenge, and his plan is that she will then hand over the boy to him.

As a result of the love portion, Lysander is in love with Helena that's caused chaos, conflict, confusion, because there's more unrequited love.

So who loves who? Helena is confused why Lysander suddenly loves her.

She thinks that he's being cruel to her like Demetrius so we've got chaos, confusion, and conflict as a result of the love potion.

The effect that it has had upon Titania and Lysander, particularly who have had the love potion placed on their sleeping eyelids.

So thinking about the love potion in the Magical Forest.

Now, Oberon does not know what has happened with Titania.

So Puck explains to Oberon what has happened with the love potion for Titania and the Athenian man.

So Puck explains what has happened.

As far as Oberon knows, the last thing that Oberon has done in terms of his revenge plan on his queen for not letting him have the boy that he wants, is he has put the love potion on Titania's sleeping eyelids, and that's all he knows.

So Puck explains what has happened, and he does that to inform Oberon, to inform the character Oberon what has happened, to inform him that Titania has woken up and she has fallen in love with Bottom and Puck also therefore can tell Oberon that he gave Bottom the head of an ass to make him look foolish because of his not so good quality acting that he was doing and his bumbling stupidity that he wanted to play a trick on him.

So for Oberon, and you can imagine that this plan is ideal because Titania is being humiliated and his plan of revenge is working nicely.

You can imagine Oberon almost rubbing his hands together in glee.

But when we always think about a play, we have to remind ourselves that it is being performed to an audience.

So actually when Puck explains what has happened and gives a summary of the events, what has happened to Titania and her situation with Bottom and the love potion.

In actual fact, that is one of Shakespeare's tools or tricks to inform and remind the audience because we are watching a Shakespearean Comedy.

There is confusion over who is who, and not just who is physically who, but also in this case, who is in love with who, because bottom has turned into having the head of an ass.

Titania is under the love potion, Lysander is in love with Helena and was in love with Hermia.

There's lots of confusion going on.

So what Shakespeare does in Puck's explanation is he is informing and reminding the audience what has happened so we don't get lost with the plot.

So whenever you're thinking about a play, try not to just think about the obvious.

Oh yeah, Puck's telling Oberon on what's going on because Oberon hasn't seen it.

No, he hasn't, but Shakespeare has done this deliberately to remind the audience because the people watching the play in Elizabethan England would have been of different levels of intelligence, different levels of wealth.

So those that did not have as much money did not have an education.

So therefore those extra explanations are really useful that the audience can continue to follow the storyline of what is actually going on in the play.

So always try and think about that with a play.

Really, really useful.

So it's there to remind the audience.

Now, what we now have to realise is that the mistake has been made.

We know that Lysander shouldn't have had the love potion on his eyelids.

We know that the love potion should have gone on Demetrius because as an audience we understand and know more than the characters dramatic irony.

We know that Oberon witnessed Helena and Demetrius's argument.

He took pity on Helena and wanted to help.

So this is the moment when the characters catch up almost with what we know.

So Oberon says, "Stand close, this is the same Athenian." Puck says, "This is the woman, but not this the man." So Oberon when he says this is the same Athenian, that means that he's seen Demetrius appear.

And Puck then says, "This is the woman." He means Hermia.

But not this the man, because he put the love potion on Lysander.

So we have to make sure we're really careful here that we don't lose track of who's who, so be really careful.

So all lovers in the forest then.

Let's make sure we have that recap so we don't get confused because Pucks helps to explain it to the audience, but it's always really useful to make sure we keep track so we don't miss the key parts of the story.

So before Shakespeare interrupts the narrative with Bottom and Titania we know.

So he disrupts the narrative and brings in our comic element of the ass and Titania.

But just prior to this, we need to remember that Puck has put the love potion on Lysander.

Lysander therefore now loves Helena.

Helena is left confused and hurt and Hermia has woken up and cannot find Lysander.

She doesn't know where he's gone, we do.

We know that he's going after Helena because of the love potion.

So what I would like you to do, please is pause your video and see if you can complete those four statements.

Off you go, please.

Excellent work, let's have a check if we managed to follow the characters carefully and that we didn't get ourselves muddled.

So before Shakespeare interrupts the narrative with bottom and Titania, we know Puck has put the love potion on Lysander.

Well done if you put Lysander.

Lysander loves Helena, excellent work.

Helena is confused and hurt because she doesn't understand why Lysander is suddenly saying these things.

She feels that they're both making a bit of a joke out of her and Hermia has woken up and cannot find Lysander.

So well done if you've got those characters correct and those key words correct, excellent work.

So again, let's remind ourselves of Act 2.

So this is what happens just prior to that interruption of Bottom and Titania's confusing, ridiculous part of the plot that takes place.

So before we go back to our lovers in Act 3, let's just have an Act 2 recap.

So we are reminded that in Act 2 Lysander loves Helena, he's had the love potion put on him.

And he says, "And all my powers address your love and might to honour Helen, and to be her knight." So he's saying that all of his power address your love and might to honour Helen.

Another word for Helena, obviously just a version of her name and to be her knight.

He's telling us that he is utterly devoted with all the power that he has to serve Helena as her knight to be the man that looks after her, to be the man that loves her.

And that's what he declares, but dramatic irony we know that's because of the love portion.

Helena does not.

So we understand more than the characters.

We also know that Helena is confused and hurt.

She says, "O, that a lady of one man refus'd, should of another therefore be abus'd." So a lady of one man refused, so she said, "Not only am I refused of Demetrius, Demetrius doesn't want me, I'm now going to be verbally abused by Lysander as well." So she thinks that both men are being cruel to her.

Demetrius doesn't want her and now Lysander is making a joke out of her.

He's abusing her because he's pretending to love her and she thinks that's a cruel trick.

And Hermia has woken up and cannot find Lysander.

Remember they slept apart.

They slept apart because Hermia was not married to Lysander so she asked him to lie further away.

That's why Puck's mistake came in because he assumed that they despise each other.

They had hatred and that's why they weren't lying close together.

Actually, it was out of respect that Hermia requested from Lysander.

And Hermia says, "Lysander! What, removed? Lysander! Lord! What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?" Even in the punctuation there, we can hear the panic that Hermia is going through.

She cannot find Lysander.

She's in the middle of the Magical Forest.

She can't find Lysander and she has no understanding why he would have left her.

She doesn't know why he would have left.

So she's panicking, she's scared, she's worried what has happened to Lysander because she doesn't think that he would willingly leave her.

So that's Act 2 recap.

Reminding ourselves of these textual examples of Lysander loving Helena, Helena being confused and hurt, and Hermia waking up not being able to find Lysander.

So let's pause the three questions.

Who does Lysander love now and who does he know hate? So his love has turned to hatred for a particular character.

Number two, why is Helena confused and hurt? And number three, why is Hermia scared and worried? Take a moment, please to pause your video and see if you can answer those three questions in full sentences, please.

Off you go.

So let's have a look at what our possible answers might be.

So number one, Lysander now loves Helena and hates Hermia.

Be really careful that you get those two female characters the right way round.

If not, it may cause some confusion.

Number two, Helena is confused and hurt because she cannot understand why Lysander no longer loves Hermia and believe she's been tricked.

She feels like she's been turned down by one man, refused by Demetrius and now being abused by Lysander.

She thinks it's a cruel joke.

And number three, Hermia is scared and worried because she wakes up and cannot find Lysander.

She panicked, she doesn't know where he's gone.

She can't understand why he would have left her at all.

So well done if you managed to get those answers or something similar, excellent work.

So we need to think about the pain of unrequited love.

This sense of suffering, and Demetrius particularly his pain of unrequited love is displayed quite strongly.

So O why rebuke you him that loves you so? Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse.

For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.

If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep, and kill me too.

So this is an interaction between Demetrius and Hermia.

Nothing's changed between Demetrius and Hermia.

Hermia loves Lysander, Demetrius loves Hermia.

So Demetrius is suffering from unrequited love and he cannot understand still why Helena is being so cruel.

Why you rebuke you him that loves you so? Why rebuke you him that loves you so? Why are you being so cruel to someone who loves you so much? Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

Those things you're saying to me should be saved to your worst enemy, not the person that actually loves you.

Now that might sound a little bit familiar to Helena's character.

Helena, who's willing to follow Demetrius around, be his spaniel, completely follow him around and trail after him, allowing herself to be struck by him, to be abused by him, to be neglected.

And she's willing to do that for love.

And Demetrius is going after Hermia, even though she is being cruel and unkind to him because she wants him to stop following her, to leave her alone.

So both of these characters, Demetrius and Helena are going through similar circumstances.

But Demetrius who experienced it for himself does not show sympathy towards Helena.

And we can see towards the end of Hermia's speech here, particularly towards the end, she says, "If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, if you have killed Lysander in his sleep." So that's what she fears.

She is worried, she's seen Demetrius.

She can't find Lysander.

She is genuinely worried that Demetrius has killed Lysander because you see, Demetrius loves Hermia.

He wants to marry Hermia.

Lysander is a barrier to that.

So Hermia fears that Demetrius has killed her true love Lysander.

And she says, "If you have, then kill me too." She's willing to die for love, so she's willing to die for love.

And Helena is willing to die for love also.

She's willing to die by Demetrius' hand if that means that they can have some form of being together.

So Demetrius' suffering, this is emphasised even further.

He talks about how the language Hermia uses is bitter towards him.

It should be saved for her worst enemy, but she puts that language upon him and he loves her.

And he expresses his suffering as follows, "So should the murder'd look, and so should I, pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty.

Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear, as yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.

So for him, the suffering, the pain of unrequited love it's violent.

It's he said, it's like I've been pierced through the heart.

It's like a sword has gone through his heart completely and that's a violent image.

This pain of unrequited love that Demetrius is going through because he's been accused of murdering Lysander, and he's actually saying yet you are the one that is murdering me.

You are the murderer, you are killing me from his suffering.

So there's a violent image of his suffering.

There's a sense of touch that would have been pierced through the heart.

The pain that that would bring.

The agony that he feels as a consequence of unrequited love.

Her words are like death to him.

They're killing him slowly but surely.

So we ask ourselves, do we feel sympathy for Demetrius? He is going through a horrible experience.

She has been cruel with her word, she's accusing him of murdering the person that she loves and completely ignoring him, and not wanting him to follow her, and not wanting him to be around her at all.

But do we feel sympathy for Demetrius? Because we were told right near the start of the play by Shakespeare, that Demetrius once professed his love for Helena.

And he won her soul and she now dotes upon him.

And he changed his mind to her friend, Hermia.

So we still go back to that example of what Lysander told us about Demetrius' past with Helena.

And it makes us question here, are we starting to feel sympathy for Demetrius because of this violent torturous, agonising image where words are like death to him? Or are we still siding with Helena because Demetrius should be more understanding of Helena's pain because he's going through the same pain himself.

But it's not Helena's fault he's suffering this pain, but Helena's pain is Demetrius' fault.

So let's have a look at a metaphor then, Hermia's metaphor.

So Hermia says, "And hast though kill'd him sleeping? O, brave touch! Could not a worm, an adder, do so much? An adder did it; for with doubler tongue than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.

So Hermia was using a metaphor to compare Demetrius to a serpent.

So you can see your image on the screen that he's being compared to a serpent, a snake.

And that has a certain connotation to certain connotations, when we think of the idea of a snake.

Connotations are things that are brought to mind.

So it's associations we have with the idea of a snake.

We can say that if someone's a snake they're often seen as quite sneaky.

Snakes will sneak up on you and they will slither along the ground and you might not see them coming first of all.

They're also seen as very sly, this sense of kind of trickery.

This idea of sneaking up on you in a negative way.

They're not seen as trustworthy.

The connotation of a snake then often seen as untrustworthy, not trustworthy.

They are associated quite often with the idea of the devil.

And we'll come onto an explanation of that a little bit later on in today's learning.

When we look at a paragraph and I'll give you examples of how you can really extend your thinking.

But they are often associated with the idea of the devil.

And they are seen as quite hateful, something that is often quite despised.

Some people find them beautiful creatures, but I'm talking now about the general connotations of this idea of labelling a person as a snake.

So we're thinking about the snake itself, but we're also thinking about the connotations of when a person is labelled as a snake, what that suggests about them.

So we're going to talk through this task together, and then I'll ask you to pause your video to complete it.

So the question, what does Hermia's metaphor suggest about Demetrius? In your blue box on the left hand side, I've given you a possible paragraph opening.

Shakespeare's use of the metaphor, 'thou serpent' shows that Hermia is comparing Demetrius to a snake because and that's your opportunity to talk about that first key point that you wish to make about what a snake suggests.

Then on your right hand side, you've got three bullet points, which you might choose to talk about in your paragraph.

The idea that Hermia believes he's killed Lysander and the impact that that has upon that image.

The second one has Egeus' favour.

So when she's suggesting that he's untrustworthy, not trustworthy, sly, sneaky, is that part of the thing that she's part of the idea that she's going back to that Egeus approves of Demetrius and not Lysander.

Is there a bitterness from Hermia towards Demetrius about that? And then I've given you those key words, sneaky, sly, not trustworthy, devil, and hateful that we had on the previous screen.

When you're ready, pause your video and complete your paragraph.

Off you go, please.

Excellent work.

So what does Hermia's metaphor suggest about Demetrius? Let's have a look at a good answer together.

An answer that does everything you need to do, talk about a metaphor, your quotation, and what that might suggest.

Let's read through together, then.

Shakespeare's use of the metaphor, 'thou serpent' shows that Hermia is comparing Demetrius to a snake because she believes that he has sneaked up upon Lysander and killed him.

The metaphor also implies that he is sly because of Hermia's that Lysander has been killed in his sleep.

So not only has he killed him, it's the fact that he's done it in his sleep when he's unsuspecting, when he doesn't know he's coming, when Lysander wouldn't have a chance to defend himself.

So that's a good answer.

It does everything that a paragraph of analysis should do.

However, extra fantastic things you might say, because we always want to strive to be better.

We always want to make improvements and really showcase off our learning.

So let's have a look at what we could have extended to.

This makes Demetrius cowardly as he's not openly challenged Lysander and adhered to the expectations of male honour.

So as a man, it would be expected that he would challenge Lysander to a fair fight.

But Hermia's suggestion is that he is cowardly, perhaps because he has sneaked up on Lysander while he was sleeping.

Next bit, as Elizabethans were predominantly religious, the serpent reference would have associated Demetrius with the devil from the story of Genesis.

So the story, when the devil, he took on the form of a serpent and tempted Eve to take the apple from the tree of knowledge, and that caused the downfall of man in a really short concise summary.

Shakespeare sorry, is therefore emphasising how much hatred Hermia truly has for Demetrius.

So she's seen him as the devil.

That's really extreme form of hatred.

The bitterness towards him is intensified because Demetrius has Egeus' his favour, but Lysander does not, yet he deserves it more.

So perhaps at the back of it all, she's still thinking that Demetrius is liked by her father, but Lysander is the better man.

So they're extra fantastic things you might say.

If you'd like to at this stage, you can pause your video and add one of these fantastic things to your paragraph if you wish.

Puck's mistake, Lysander as a result of Puck's mistake suffers unrequited love for Helena.

Helena suffers confusion and hurt.

Hermia worries Lysander is dead and Demetrius suffers unrequited love for Hermia and is insulted cruelly all as a result of Pucks mistake.

This love potion causing chaos, confusion, and conflict.

Look what it's done to these four lovers.

The suffering that they're all going through, the suffering and the worry as a result of this love potion.

But Oberon was trying to help.

He was trying to make Helena's situation better, but due to the mistake that Puck has made, the situation has got worse.

So Oberon wants to help, and he wants to fix the situation.

He wants to put it right, but Puck shows his mischievous side.

One example of Puck's mischievous side is as follows, "Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!" There's an element of irony.

Look at these fools.

Look what they're doing, these mortals, these human beings.

In actual fact, it should be the fairies that the foolish ones.

It should be the fairies that are all about chaos and disorder and not having order within their realm, but in actual fact, the mortals, the four lovers have gone into the forest and chaos is ensued as a result of that.

But Puck wants to watch.

He says, "Shall we watch what happens and see how foolish they can all be." He actually wants to watch it.

So there's this mischievous side.

Also Puck says, "Then will two at once woo." So if we put the love potion on Demetrius as Oberon wants, then we'll two at once woo one.

So that means Demetrius and Lysander will then both intensely and dote upon Helena and both want to woo her.

That must needs be sport alone.

And those things do best please that befall prepost'rously.

So this point, Puck wants some entertainment.

He wants to watch the sport.

That must needs to be sport alone.

He wants to enjoy the fact that two people are going to pursue one person.

And he says, "That pleases me, I enjoy that.

I enjoy when things go disastrously wrong like that." So yes, Puck is changing the Elizabethan perception of fairies from being malevolent, spiteful, cruel, nasty, playing tricks for bad reasons, to bring bad luck to cause suffering.

But Shakespeare is not completely turning his back on this mischievous side to a fairy.

There's a little part of Puck who is not quite as good as Oberon in the sense that Oberon wants to help, but Puck, he still wants a little bit of entertainment.

He still wants to get some pleasure out of seeing these humans in a little bit of a mess and a little sense of chaos and a bit of confusion and a bit of conflict.

And if we're honest, isn't Puck kind of showing what the audience are possibly thinking? Because as an audience, if we watch a play and everything runs smoothly and perfectly, and the lovers are always happy and there's no chaos, conflict or confusion, where's the entertainment? Where's the comedy value for us? So when Puck says, "Wouldn't it be fun to see this?" Perhaps the audience might be thinking the same thing, that actually this chaos, this conflict, and this confusion, yes, there's an element of it causing heartache for the characters, but there's also the sense of the comedy value because they're watching a play and there's that expectation from a Shakespearian Comedy that it will ultimately make them laugh.

So is Puck being all that bad? We've got this perception of the fairy changing but his Puck all that bad because actually he is wanting entertainment as we do as an audience.

And he wants to watch it happen.

So there's some questions for you then, three questions.

Why is it ironic that Puck would call them mortals fools? Number two, what does Puck think will be entertaining? And number three, what might Shakespeare be suggesting about fairies using the character of Puck? So in a moment, I'm going to ask you to pause your video and answer those three questions.

But when we're thinking about what Puck will find entertaining, have a think for number two, challenge yourselves, because for number two, Puck thinks it will be entertaining if two woo at once.

I think, have we already seen that? Does it need to have the chaotic love portion for that to take place? Is there a point in the play where we have two characters loving the same person just under different circumstances? So when you're ready, pause your video and have a go at those three questions.

Off you go, please.

Excellent work, let's have a look what we could put to remember these options.

It is ironic that Puck would call the mortals fools because it is the fairy world that is supposed to be chaotic and foolish, isn't it? Even without the love potion, the lovers were still entangled in a web of love and unrequited love.

So even without the fairy world getting involved and Oberon trying to fix the situation as he does and help, actually they were already entangled anyway.

Because they were some people in love and some suffering from unrequited love.

Number two, Puck thinks it will be entertaining to watch both Lysander and Demetrius pursue Helena at the same time.

Ironically, this is what has happened to Hermia anyway, without the love potion.

So that was the extra bit I said, challenge yourselves with.

And number three, using the character of Puck, Shakespeare might be suggesting that although fairies are not malevolent, they are still mischievous.

They still want to play tricks and get up to no good and be entertained by human beings.

So Lysander's love for Helena.

We've got Puck, who's made his mistake, caused a lot of chaos and kind of wants to enjoy what he has done and witnessed that first-hand and be entertained by it as perhaps does the audience.

Poor Lysander though, he genuinely is in love with Helena in his mind.

He genuinely believes that he's in love with Helena.

And he therefore can't understand why Helena is reacting the way that she does.

He says, "Why should you think that I should woo in scorn? Scorn and derision never come in tears.

Look when I vow, I weep and vows so born, in their nativity all truth appears." So scorn is a feeling that something isn't worthy of respect.

So Helena feels disrespected by Lysander that he should woo her in scorn, that he should treat her with a lack of respect, and that's why he's wooing her in the way that he is.

and vows the idea of a promise.

Look, when I vow, when I'm telling you, when I'm declaring my love for you, when I'm promising my love for you.

And Helena doesn't believe that it is real.

Dramatic irony though.

We know that he's under the influence of the love potion.

His actions are explained by the love potion, Helena doesn't know, she doesn't understand and know what the audience knows.

And he's passionate, he's so passionate.

He shows that through tears and weeping.

That's how much he loves her, and he can't express that emotionally.

So much passionate that it's coming through in the form of tears and weeping as he promises his love for her.

And she thinks she has been scorned.

She thinks that he is being disrespectful to her, that he doesn't think she is worthy of respect.

And like we've said that element of dramatic irony.

We know why Lysander has suddenly changed his mind, Helena doesn't.

So love and reason.

We've got Helena thinking that she's been made a mockery off and she can't make sense of the situation.

So Lysander says, "I had no judgement when to her I swore." So I have no sense of reason when I swore my love for Hermia.

Helena, "Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.

Now you give her over.

Now you've given her up.

I don't think you're showing any reason here either.

Like Bottom, Lysander believes in the idea that love and reason should be friends.

That love and reason comes hand in hand.

And he believes that now he has gained reason.

We know it's by the love potion, but in Lysander's mind, he's gained a sense of reason that he can understand that he was immature when he loved Hermia, that that love wasn't real.

But now he feels differently about Helena.

Now he understands love.

He's now made sense of it and he completely dotes upon her.

In Helena's mind however, Lysander is not acting with reason because if he was acting with reason, he wouldn't suddenly switch and change his mind from one character to the next.

From Hermia to Helena.

Once again, Shakespeare is therefore suggesting that the back of all of this, that love and reason are impossible.

That love and reason can't be friends.

They can't work hand in hand with each other because love itself is an uncontrollable force.

Love itself is illogical, it doesn't follow logic.

To bring The Power of Love to a close, and to get our final thoughts on our current state of The Power of Love.

Let's have a look at the following, how does Helena feel about Lysander declaring his love for her? How does she feel about that? There was a word beginning with s that you might use.

What does Lysander do when he declares his love to suggest it's true and genuine? That he's so passionate.

And number three, does Helena think Lysander is acting with reason and why not? Think about Hermia with number three.

And number four, what might Shakespeare be suggesting about love and reason? So pause your video, please, and have a go at answering those four questions.

Off you go.

Excellent work, let's have a look at our possible answers then.

Helena feels that Lysander's declaration of love is false and disrespectful.

There's lots of different words and phrases you could use there, but the idea in your answer is hopefully similar to mine, that she doesn't feel that it's real.

She doesn't feel that it's genuine.

Number two, Lysander weeps when he declares his love to suggest it's true and genuine.

If it's fake, he couldn't cry the way he is over his love for her, so it has to be true, and that's his sense of reason.

Number three, Helena thinks Lysander is not acting with reason because he's suddenly given up Hermia.

That is not a reasonable logical reaction.

You cannot switch your emotions in Helena's mind from one person the next.

That's not how it works.

And number four, Shakespeare might be suggesting that love and reason cannot work together because love is a force which acts without reason.

Plenty of possible interpretations for number four.

As long as at the basis of it, we can suggest that Shakespeare is telling us that love and reason cannot work together.

That's the basis of that answer.

That they cannot work together.

They don't work as a friendship as Bottom and Lysander hope for them to do.

So that brings us to the end of today's learning on The Power of Love.

Don't forget to take your quiz and aim for that 100% to really showcase all of those amazing learning achievements that you've managed to accomplish today.

So from me, thank you very much.

Take care and enjoy the rest of your learning.