The Flea
by John Donne
1572-1631
(The Complete English Poems edited by C. A. Patrides, Everyman’s Library)

Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sinne, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two
And this, alas, is more then wee would doe.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where wee almost, yea more then maryed are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and mariage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloystered in these living walls of Jet.

How to have sex and exchange bodily fluids without actually having sex? How to integrate to the point where blood mingles? The flea has the answer. So have mosquitoes, ticks and leeches . . . think of all those people whose blood has mixed with yours inside your friendly neighbourhood parasite; people you’ve never met, people you would never dream of kissing, let along having sex with. But oh, if love, desire or obsession is involved, think of how one might find joy in sharing blood with the object of one’s affections through the go-between of an insect.

This poem is as sexy as a soft-porn script. However, I once sat on someone’s sofa wearing a skirt and got up to find the backs of my legs had been bitten raw by fleas, so I heartily detest them and any sexual analogy escaped me at the time. But here is one flea that facilitates a partnering of corpuscles that might never otherwise be.

The speaker in the poem asks the object of his affections to observe the flea. It seems that the lady has denied him the kind of proximity the flea now enjoys, when, having drunk from him, it now drinks from her. The flea contains DNA from both parties; they are met and mated in the “living walls of Jet” that form the body of the flea.

And, as our speaker points out, his lady knows “that this cannot be said/ A sinne” because they have not actually made love and she has not lost her virginity (maidenhead). He adds that the flea, however, “enjoyes before it wooe” because it has had its way with her without even the preliminary chat-up and foreplay. He bemoans that this “is more than wee would doe”. I sympathise; the flea is having a far better time than he is, and it didn’t even have to take her to dinner.

He celebrates the flea as the vessel in which he and his lady are married; the mingled blood inside the flea represents the consummation of the union, and the flea’s body is the temple in which the ceremony took place. The flea is more than just a filthy insect that deserves to be squashed; it has become the conduit for (sadly frustrating) sex-by-proxy. The “one blood made of two” reflects the idea that two people conjoined in the sexual act become one. One in body – so to speak – and one in mind and spirit, although this is a highly idealised romantic notion, because sadly, postcoitus, someone has to pick up her kids from school and someone has to meet his wife off the train.

“Parents grudge,” he says, “and you,” he adds, which I take to mean that his lady isn’t as keen on the physical union as he is. So, representing the cherished idea of fulfilment, the speaker wants the flea to stay. It goes to show that when in love – or lust – our imaginations include our beloved in every small incident, even one the size of an insect bite. Love gives us illusions that we cherish because we need to, but personally, I would prefer my admirer to kill the flea.

frieda.hughes@thetimes.co.uk

Times Recommends

• The Sunday Times 100 best holiday reads
• What will we be reading this summer: the booksellers predict
• Literary festivals: a survivor’s guide