In John Donne's poem "The Flea", Donne uses the symbolism of a flea as a means through which he attempts to seduce a lover to become intimate with him. It is a piece of poetry that hails from Donne's "Carpe Diem" period; when his main focus within his works focused on worldly matters rather than those dealing with faith.
The purpose of this piece is, to put it rather bluntly, for Donne to bed his reluctant partner. The poem begins with the following lines:
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
The flea here has easy access to what Donne finds his lover hesitant to give him: her blood. Donne downplays what the flea has taken; in this way trying to get his mistress to not regard her virginity as highly as she does. Donne also mentions how that committing a sexual act would not be "a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead", further trying to disarm his wary lover.
The second part of this sexual poem describes the flea in such terms:
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
This symbolizes the flea as a living sign of the consummation of the couple's relationship. While it isn't within the formal sense a marriage, Donne uses this bit to describe how he and his mistress are, in the physical sense, already betrothed to one another. Via the flea, the pair has already combined bodily fluids, and therefore have already become intimate with each other in a sense.
The third part of "The Flea" ends with the lover crushing the flea to death. Donne asks how the lea is guilty of anything "Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?" In this way, Donne compares himself to the flea in how they both just want a little "blood". The way he presents it again downplays its importance again; suggesting that maybe his love should be more inclined to share her "blood".
"The Flea" is one of John Donne's lusty seduction poems from his "Carpe Diem" days of his poetry. The overtly sexual nature of the piece contrasts greatly with his later, more religiously centered works.
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