JOHN DONNE

[1572–1631]

The Flea

Born in London to a prosperous Catholic family (through his mother he was related to statesman and author Sir Thomas More and the playwright John Heywood), John Donne (1572–1631) studied at Oxford University for several years but did not take a degree. He fought with Sir Walter Raleigh in two naval strikes against Spain. In 1601 Donne’s promising political career was permanently derailed by his precipitate marriage to Anne More without her father’s consent. He was briefly imprisoned, lost a very promising position with Sir Thomas Egerton, and spent years seeking political employment before finally being persuaded by King James in 1615 to become a priest of the Church of England. His life was described by Isaac Walton later in the century as having been divided into two parts. In Phase I he was “Jack Donne” of Lincoln’s Inn: when young, Donne employed a sophisticated urban wit that lent a sort of jaded tone to his earlier poetry. “The Flea” presumably appeared during this stage of his life and is a typical metaphysical poem. In Phase II he was John Donne, dean of St. Paul’s: after Donne took holy orders in 1615 his poetry became markedly less amorous and more religious in tone. His Holy Sonnets, of which “Batter my heart, three-personed God” is one, are as dense and complex as his earlier work but directed toward an exploration of his relationship with God.

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deny’st me is;

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;

Confess it, this cannot be said

A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,

And cloistered in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to this, self murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?

In what could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou

Find’st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;

’Tis true, then learn how false, fears be;

Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,

Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.