John Donne: The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deny'st me is;

It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;

Thou knowest 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, 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 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.

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 sayest that thou

Find'st not thyself, nor me, the weaker now.

'Tis true, then learn how false fears be;

Just so much honor, when thou yieldst to me,

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

John Donne just hit on a girl using a flea as a metaphor. That girl wasn't having any of it and killed the flea, so take that John Donne. You're not getting any today my friend.

I'm not really sure what else I want to comment on this. John Donne is really kind of huge in poetry, but I only know him because in a Scholarship Essay for the Exchange Club of the Tonawandas (Shoutout, didn't win the main prize but they as an organization were very nice to me and the other people I knew who were Student of the Month) I tried to use "No man is an island" as a proverb, and one of the ladies from our local group of the Exchange Club who were kind of our mentors  scolded me for not giving Donne the proper credit. When I expressed my surprise that it wasn't just some anonymous proverb she kind of went on a John Donne spiel in which she mentioned this poem because, and absolutely no disrespect here, she is clearly one of those people who is at the age where they don't really have the most concern for prudence anymore. I wish I could remember her name because she was really awesome. She apparently taught English at Tonawanda for almost a decade, and still cared deeply about Tonawanda as a community, which was nice. The fact that she thanked us for not being as snobby as NT didn't hurt either, hahaha.

But yeah, other thoughts on this poem are that the more things change, the more they really kind of stay the same. Silly guys will try and get girls by saying stupid things. I remember my English teacher Mr. Mercer always trying to highlight how bawdy William Shakespeare was. I think when you're first starting Shakespeare it's kind of a surprise how racy he really is. I mean, think of the porter complaining about alcohol affecting his love life in Macbeth. Shakespeare's happy to go there, to walk that line, and it's not surprising, because Shakespeare was a twenty year old guy. Granted, a really talented, eloquent, twenty year old man who deeply understood the human condition and was deft at social satire- but he was still a twenty year old guy who made penis jokes. Mr. Mercer would have you know he was actually quite good at it. Right now I am likewise reminded of Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream messing up his line and saying that the lion deflowered poor Thisby.

The fact that guys haven't changed doesn't make it any less amusing to watch John Donne hit on a girl while using rhyming language like "Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered, swells with one blood made of two,". But at the same time, it's kind of nice to be reminded, even with silly things like this, that people haven't changed all that much throughout the centuries.

Nobody's used any insect metaphors on me yet, so I guess that's reassuring.