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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 1Scene 1
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"Sickness is catching"
Wordplay
Act 1,
Scene 1
Lines 180-193

An explanation of the wordplay in “sickness is catching” in Act 1, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Hermia

God speed, fair Helena. Whither away?

Helena

Call you me fair? That “fair” again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair, O happy fair!
Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching. O, were favor 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'd give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Helena plays on the meanings of "catch." You can catch someone's illness, and Helena can catch Hermia's words (catch her drift). But what she would really like to catch (obtain) is Hermia's beautiful eyes and singing voice, so that she might attract Demetrius.