The+Flea


 * Summary**

The poem is a erotic metaphysical poem published like all of John Donne's poems posthumously. In the poem the author uses the conceit, an extended metaphor, of a flea to comment on the relationship between the speaker and a woman. The speaker tries to convince a lady to sleep with him, using the argument that if their blood mingling in the flea is harmless,then if they were to pursue a sexual relation, the mingling would also be just as harmless.

The poem actually hinges on the idea of blood and mixing of blood. The idea that blood is powerful and the source of new life in pregnancy. The conceit also uses blood because it is one of the four humors that in medieval medicine were thought to govern a person's life and is the one most closely associated with the topic of love. The humor of blood is related to the sanguine temperament, considered to be creative, impulsive, and pleasure seekiing.

 How little that which thou deniest me is ;  It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,  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 pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;  And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
 * Analysis**
 * < MARK but this flea, and mark in this,

 O stay, three lives in one flea spare,  Where we almost, yea, 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're met,  And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.  Though use make you apt to kill me, <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Let not to that self-murder added be, <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Cruel and sudden, hast thou since <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Wherein could this flea guilty be, <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee? <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now. <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> 'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ; <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, <span style="font-family: Georgia,Book Antiqua;"> Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee. ||< # //Flea// - Small blood sucking vermin that we believed to carry sickness with them. > hopeful, amorous nature. All of which we see in the speaker as he addresses his love. > and their life has mixed inside it with no sex. It is a nod to the virgin birth of Christ. > This is again an image that is repeated in the line //O stay, three lives in one flea spare//. > which is an allusion to the wedding night, the first time that a man and wife should be together > in the eyes of the church. And the marriage temple reads as related to this idea > that the human body is the temple of the soul. There is also even more when it is tied with the > second half of the line, because then it become almost an image of the woman's reproductive selves. > With these two lines, Donne is creating an image of something almost a prison out of > their relationship. Cloister'd is related to the idea of separating something from the outside > world. Jet is a minor gem made from wood under immense pressure in the earth, it becomes > a dark brown or black (the color of the flea). > the nails in innocence blood does seem to hold ideas of original sin or the Cain and Abel story. > Blood on a person's hands. > That there is nothing evil about the act of sex, that it is part of the most natural part of life. > The narrator is saying that he and the woman he is speaking to might as well have sex. > Because they have already been made one inside of the flea. Their blood has mixed in the > tiny insect and will continue its life. Therefore they should join together and become one. || Donne, John. "The Flea." //The Norton Anthology of English Literature//. 9th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 1373. Print.
 * 1) //How little that which thou deniest me is// - This is referring to the idea that sex is such a trivial thing
 * 2) //Blood// - one of the four humors. Echos with the characteristics of courageous,
 * 1) //Pamper'd swells// - indication of pregnancy, the flea has become filled with their life
 * 1) //One blood made of two// - again indicating a pregnancy but also having a trinity image
 * 1) //Our marriage bed, and marriage temple// - The flea has been transformed into the marriage bed
 * 1) //Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,/ and cloister'd in these living walls of jet//
 * 1) //Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence// - Purple is the color of royalty and the idea of coloring
 * 1) The last four lines of the poem really get to the heart of what Done has been getting after.
 * References**

Image Source: Giuseppe Crespi [Public domain], via