Summary

"The Flea" begins with the speaker asking his beloved to "mark this flea," as he suggests that something she denies him is inconsequential (1). Explaining that the flea bit him first, and next bit his beloved, he tells her that their blood is now mingled within the body of the flea. He coyly asserts that this wedding of their two bloods is not "a sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead" (6). He says the the flea gets to "enjoy" blood before it courts a lover, and it is now swollen with two bloods that have become one (7). This union of the two bloods is, the speaker protests, "more than we would do" (9).

The speaker asks the woman not to kill the flea and to spare the three lives that now live inside it. He asserts that inside the flea, they are "more than married," as...