John Donne: "The Flea"

The playboy before the priest

[The Flea, Robert Hooke, Micrographia 1665]

"Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”¹

Many who know and love John Donne based on just a taste of his poetry know and love John Donne, usually, on account of one or two of the earlier poems we looked at, which are among his best known: “Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God” and “Death be not Proud.”

Well, dear readers, our poem today reveals … dun, dun, duuuuunnnn … the other side of Donne.

Because most of Donne’s poetry was not published during his lifetime, exact dating of the writing of most of his poems is not certain. However, many of them, written on manuscripts, were circulated among friends, and enough documentation exists to know the general trajectory of his writing and its overall history.

While a young man, Donne was quite the carouser. One contemporary described him as “a great visitor of ladies, a great frequenter of plays, a great writer of conceited verses.”  (“Conceited” here is meant as the literary figure explained in an earlier post.) So while Donne wrote poetry and other works over the course of his life, his writing followed a pattern that reflected the pattern of his life.

He first wrote erotic verses such as today’s specimen, “The Flea,” then later the Holy Sonnets, sermons, meditations, hymns, and more mature love poems. The great turning point in subject matter seems to have occurred upon meeting and marrying Anne More. Some believe “The Flea” was written while he was wooing her. In this poem we see, in a way, the best of both worlds.

While “The Flea” is frankly, cleverly, and playfully, erotic, it is also religiously serious, and therefore displays the direction Donne’s poetry and life would continue to take as the playboy transformed into the priest.

That religious seriousness isn’t as obvious at first, however. And to be extra clear about the frankness: reader, beware. What follows is something close to R-rated.

First, the set-up: the poem is presented in the form of a dramatic monologue. Let us imagine a dialogue between two people, but one in which we are privy to only one side of the conversation—sort of like hearing one end of a phone conversation. But the other person is there, talking and acting in ways to which the speaker we can hear is responding. (It really is rather dramatic!) We must imagine how the speaker’s conversation partner is responding that leads to the developments as the monologue goes on. And, not to be too coy about it, this is a conversation between a wooer and the wooed.

As always, we must attend to the structure of the poem—in this case, three stanzas, each of which develops a different movement in the speaker’s overall argument. And there is indeed an argument being made. The argument begins with the first word, presented in the form of an imperative: “Mark: In other words, “Look.”

Let’s see what follows, one stanza at a time.

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   

How little that which thou deniest me is;   

It sucked 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 pampered swells with one blood made of two,

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

The speaker tells his would-be lover to look at “this flea.” Fleas were a persistent problem during this time. It wouldn’t have been hard to find one. They were, in fact, the great superspreaders of The Plague. They were everywhere. Imagine the scene then: the speaker, the woman, and the flea that he is pointing to. The two people are likely in some sort of embrace. One that either the flea—or the woman—or both—has interrupted.

Mark this flea, the lover says, and mark with it how little and insignificant that thing is that you are denying me. (He’s talking about sex, dear readers.)

Here is the argument he makes. The flea, having bitten both of them, is now host to both of their bodily fluids, which mingle now in the flea. Since sex is merely (his argument implies) the mingling of bodily fluids, the deed has already been done. The conceit (the unlikely comparison) is that sex is like two people being bitten by the same flea. Thus, if their bodily fluids are already mingling, and the woman has no sin or shame to bear in that, then, what the hey? Sex is no bigger deal than this fleabite. And the flea didn’t even have to woo her! The swelling that results implies either sexual arousal or pregnancy—or both.

As we go on to the second stanza, we have to imagine what the woman is doing that prompts the speaker to say what follows:

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, 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.

Clearly, the woman is threatening to kill the flea. The speaker tries to stop her, pleading with her to spare the three lives contained within the flea: his, hers, and the “marriage” that the flea has accomplished by mingling both the blood of both of them. The flea’s body (its “walls of jet”) has become the marriage bed for the two of them, whose parents disapprove of their union. (Remember that Anne’s family had Donne imprisoned when they learned of their secret marriage, when Anne was only around 17.) Again, I think pregnancy is also implied by this “third life.” During this time, sex and pregnancy almost always went together and that was the unquestioned assumption (a very different mindset from today). And they certainly did go together, ultimately, for John and Anne, who would go on to have twelve children.

But it’s not only the parents that begrudge this union, the speaker reminds his beloved: “parents grudge, and you …” he notes, pointedly.

The last three lines of this stanza employ a traditional trope that portrays sex (particularly for a man) as a “little death” in that the act was understood to expend some amount of life or life force that might never be regained. The lover says to the woman, essentially, you could kill me with too much sex (not that he thinks this would be a bad thing!)—and if you kill this flea, you will be killing yourself, too (“self-murder”), an argument that develops the conceit that the flea holds both of them and their marriage bed.

Let me pause here and say that the flea is not a symbol of their sexual union. I will explain why not below. I only bring that up now because “symbol” is something so poorly taught and understood that often every kind of comparison gets labeled a “symbol.” It’s a very subtle distinction.

Again, we need to imagine the scene being acted out for which we are getting only one side narrated. The woman has just done the deed (not the one he wants):

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.

The woman has killed the flea with her fingernail, “purpling” the fingernail with innocent blood. The poor flea has done nothing, the speaker protests, other than taking a drop of blood from her.

She victoriously counters the speaker’s previous argument that killing the flea would be like murdering three by proclaiming that they are still both fine! So there!

Ah, the speaker says, you’re right. Nothing has happened by killing the flea. And it will be no biggie, either, when you yield yourself to me. You will lose no less honor than you lost life by killing this flea.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the metaphysical mic drop. There is no arguing with the logic of the wooer’s argument.

But metaphysicians recognize that reality—ultimate reality—transcends mere logic.

Remember, a metaphysical conceit is the use of a common, ordinary object to make a comparison between it and some transcendent matter of eternal or spiritual significance. There is no way in which a flea bite is anything like the sexual consummation of the marriage bed. By making such an absurd comparison, Donne makes that very point. Donne shows the absurdity of a completely materialist view that would understand the sexual act as something only physical and therefore as insignificant as two people being bitten by the same flea. Pretending it is so shows why it is not so.

No wonder this poem is one of the ones that helped to establish Donne’s place among the metaphysical poets.

Next week we turn to Donne’s prose with  Meditation 17. I may add another reading or two from Donne following that. Stay tuned.

BOOK NOTE:

This week’s book note is not for everyone. I doubt most or even many of my readers share my love of Stephen King or of horror/suspense in general. I do love this genre and have since I started reading King as young teen growing up in Maine, where King also lived and wrote. I have never been able to explain why I detest fantasy but love horror. I am not sure I ever will. But King offers the best insight I’ve ever come across in the afterword to You Like It Darker, my selection for this week’s Book Note.

King writes,

Horror stories are best appreciated by those who are compassionate and empathetic. A paradox but a true one. I believe it is the unimaginative among us, those incapable of appreciating the dark side of make believe who have been responsible for most of the world’s woes.

I don’t know if this explanation works for you. But it makes sense to me.

These days, I like my King on Audible during my runs. It’s great listening for running a wee bit faster! His Audible narrators are the best out there.

You Like It Darker is King’s newest short (and longer) story collection, and I loved them all. (They are not for the faint of heart!) The ending of the last story, “The Answer Man,” was profoundly moving in a way I couldn’t have predicted.

Again, I’m not trying to win over anyone for whom such is not your cup of tea. But if it is, this one is good. There is even a retelling of one of my favorite stories by Flannery O’Connor … but that’s all I will say about that. If you like horror, this is summer reading (or listening) at its best.

1. Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, trans. By Emma Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr (London: Routledge, 2002), 117.