HELENA         Sickness is catching; O, were favour so!

Your words I catch, fair Hermia; ere I go,

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,

My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,

The rest I’ll give to be to you translated.

O teach me how you look, and with what art

You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart. (1.1.186-193)

Helena’s really getting a lot off her chest, and in fact only just getting started; it’s ridiculous, but also pathetically, petulantly heart-felt. Sickness is catching; O, were favour so! I mean, I can catch a cold anytime, I just wish I could catch the heart of the man I love (and also your beauty; favour suggests both). After all, your words, I catch, fair Hermia—I hear what you say, perfectly well (and the pointed repetition of fair from earlier in the speech adds a touch of snark)—ere I go, my ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, my tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody. I wish so very much that I could sound like you, speak like you, look like you. I want to be you! Or at least as attractive as you! Were the world mine—if I had everything, absolutely everything—Demetrius being bated, excepting him of course, I’d give up everything (except Demetrius) in order to be transformed into you! The rest (of the world) I’ll give to be to you translated. (Translated is the word that’s often used for metamorphosis; it’s also the word commonly used for altering a garment.) I’d do anything, give anything, to be like you and so to have Demetrius love me back! O teach me how you look—how you appear, mostly, although there’s perhaps the implication of a way of looking, a flirtatious glance even? and with what art you sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart. How do you DO it? How do you keep him so utterly enthralled? How do you ENCHANT him so? Helena is suspicious, aggrieved as well as hurt, because art here does have the implication of enchantment, magic; so many of the terms in this first scene are establishing a frame of reference for the rest of the play…