MARK but this flea, and mark at that, says no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay How little is that which you deny me; First he sucked me, and now he sucks you, And in this flea our two bloods have mixed together. You know that this cannot be called sin, nor shame, nor loss of virginity; Yet this one enjoys before courting, and pampered swells with a blood made of two; And this, alas! it's more than we would like to do. Oh stay, three lives in a spare flea, where we are almost, yes, more than married. This flea is you and I, and this is our marriage bed and the temple of marriage. Even if the parents resent, and you, we met, and locked in these living walls of jet. Although usage makes you inclined to kill me, do not add to self-murder and sacrilege three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, have you since violated the nail in the blood of innocence? In what could this flea be guilty, if not in that drop that it sucked from you? Yet you triumph and say that you find neither you nor me weaker now. It is true; then learn how false fears are; so much honor, when you surrender to me, will be wasted, for the death of this flea has taken your life. This poem shows John Donne's skill in transforming the least likely images into elaborate metaphysical symbols of love, lust, and romance. “The Flea” uses the image of a flea that has just bitten the speaker and his beloved to describe a conflict over whether the two should have sex. The speaker wants to but his beloved doesn't, and so he uses the flea as an argument and metaphor to show how harmless sex can be. According to him, if their blood mixed in the flea was harmless and innocent, sexual mixing would be equally harmless. The speaker tells the beloved to look at the flea and notice “how small” that “thing” is that she is denying him, thus trivializing sex. Their mixture of blood cannot be defined as “sin, nor shame, nor loss of virginity”; rather, the flea brought them together in a way that, “alas, is more than we would.” His arguments go far beyond this preliminary idea and are even overturned when his beloved kills the flea. This article examines the central idea that the flea is a metaphor used to trivialize sex and, ultimately, to convey the insignificance of virginity. the opening line "mark but this flea, and notice in this, how small is that which denies me" shows that the flea is small and inconsequential and reveals that the speaker's lady is denying him sex. The flea metaphor develops as it relates to the other symbols. For example, blood is used more than once as a symbol in the poem. The speaker speaks of blood with reverence and equates it with honor: blood symbolizes life and the soul. The speaker observes that in the flea his blood and that of his woman are mixed. Likewise, during sex their souls “mix” and become one. The speaker initially appears to have a respectful attitude towards sex, believing that it can be spiritual and important. But in the end it turns out that this is just a ploy to show that sex shouldn't be taken so seriously. As her beloved moves to kill the flea, the speaker "stops" her hand, asking her to spare the trinity of three lives in the flea. : his life, his life and the life of the flea. In the flea in which their blood is mixed, they are almost “married,” even more than married, and the flea is their “marriage bed” and “temple of marriage.” Even if their parents "grudge" and disapprove of their love story and even if she doesn't want to do. 1-2.