The Flea
By John Donne
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
The mingling of blood in this line is symbolic of sex between the two lovers. Later the flea not only combines the two bloods, but also “swells” with them, suggesting pregnancy.And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor 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
The lowly flea becomes a marriage bed in the second stanza and then, stretching the metaphor even further, a temple or “cloister” where an order of monks or nuns might dwell. In this transformation the black insect becomes “living walls” made of the precious stone, jet.Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Though the speaker asks her to “stay” her hand and not kill the flea, by this point the beloved has ignored the request and squashed it with her fingernail. Notice how the speaker changes his argument in response to this change in circumstance.Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein 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 thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.