Excute virgineo conceptas pectore flammas,
Si potes, infelix. Si possem sanior essem:
Sed trahit invitam nova vis."

Or Dido, in _Virgil_ or _Ovid_:

"Ille quidem malè gratus, et ad munera surdus;
Et quo si non sim stulta carere velim:
Non tamen Æneam, quamvis male cogitat, odi;
Sed queror infidum, questaque pejus amo."

Or Phædra, in _Seneca_:

----"Furor cogit sequi
Pejora: vadit animus in præceps sciens,
Remeatque, frustra sana consilia appetens.
Sic cum gravatam navita adversâ ratem
Propellit undâ, cedit in vanum labor,
Et victa prono puppis aufertur vado."

The complaints of all are alike; they lament that they make attempts to
resist their passion, but find it not to be resisted; that they are obliged
at last to yield themselves entirely to it, and to feel their whole
thoughts, as it were, swallowed up by it.

Such being the way in which Shakspeare represents Helena, and such the
sentiments which he puts into her mouth, it seems evident that the
interpretation of _captious_ in the sense of _absorbent_ is better adapted
to the passage than the explanation of it in the sense of _fallacious_.