The Flea原文
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou[1] deniest me is;
Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee[2],
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be[3];
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, or shame, or 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[4],
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge[5], and you, we are met,
And cloisered in these living walls of jet.
Though use[6] make you apt to kill me
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege[7], three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast[8] thou since
Purpled thy nail[9] in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thy self nor me the weaker now;
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death look life from thee.
注釋
1. thou：在古英語裡，是表示you 的主格形式。
2. thee：在古英語裡，是表示 you 的賓格形式。
3. And in this flea our two bloods mingled be：這一句是這首詩的關鍵句，道出“在這隻跳蚤的身體裡，我們兩個人的血液相互交融。”
4. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare：“喔，你先等一等，不要掐死這隻跳蚤，因為它（吸了兩人的血）集三條生命於一身。”
5. grudge：厭惡，怨恨。
6. use：=habit, 習慣。
7. sacrilege：褻瀆神聖。
8.hast：在古英語裡 ，相當於 have 的第二人稱單數的現在式，主詞為 thou 。
9.purpled thy nail： thy用在古英語裡，相當於your，你的。掐死了跳蚤，所以鮮血染紅了指甲，變成了“紫色”。由此可見，詩人的語言非常滑稽有趣。
譯文
跳蚤
約翰·鄧恩
看呀，這隻跳蚤，叮在這裡，
你對我的拒絕多么微不足道；
它先叮我，現在又叮你，
我們的血液在它體內溶和；
你知道這是不能言說的
罪惡、羞恥、貞操的丟失，
它沒有向我們請求就得到享受，
飽餐了我們的血滴後大腹便便，
這種享受我們無能企及。
住手，一隻跳蚤，三條生命啊，
它的身體不只是見證我們的婚約。
還是你和我，我們的婚床，婚姻的殿堂；
父母怨恨，你不情願，我們還是相遇，
並躲藏在黝黑的有生命的牆院裡。
儘管你會習慣地拍死跳蚤，
千萬別，這會殺了我，也增加你的自殺之罪，
殺害三條生命會褻瀆神靈。
多么殘忍，你毫無猶豫
用無辜的鮮血染紅自己的指甲？
它不過吸了你一滴血
罪不至死啊？
你卻以勝利者的口吻說
你我並沒有因失血而有些虛弱；
的確，擔心不過是虛驚一場：
接受我的愛，
你的名譽不會有絲毫損失，
就象跳蚤之死不會讓你的生命有所損失。
中文賞析
這是鄧恩被收錄最多的詩篇之一。詩作以詩人向情人求愛的說話體寫成，語氣富有調侃，比附出乎通常想像，推理和結論也超乎意料，典型反映了鄧恩式的奇想。
詩的語氣和結構富有典型的鄧恩式戲劇性：第一段中，詩人看見了那隻先後叮過兩人的跳蚤，便指著它向情人證明兩人的鮮血已通過一隻先後叮咬了雙方的跳蚤融為一體，而血的交融則意味著生命的交融，詩人因此推斷，兩人的生命已經在事實上結合在一起了；第二段，詩人發現情人正抬手欲向跳蚤打去，便急忙勸阻，說這樣一來，被害的就是三條性命（你、我、跳蚤）；第三段時，對方顯然已經下手，掐死了跳蚤，所以詩人戲謔地稱對方為“殘忍”、“用無辜者的鮮血把自己的指甲染得紅紫”。這時，對方回答說，雖然“我”的血也在它（跳蚤）體內，可我並沒有因為它的死而有半分虛弱，詩人話鋒一轉，直接切入主題：既然如此，你答應我的求愛對你的名譽也不會有分毫的損失。更有意思的是，這樣的結尾，恰好使讀者恍然大悟，在詩篇開始之前，詩人正絞盡腦汁想說服情人接受他的求愛呢。
英文賞析
first stanza
I think this poem is about the speaker used a flea as a bridge that made him and his mistress combine to become one. The listener "thou"was his lover, I think he loved her very much and even want to make love withher, but she didn't.
1 stanza
（L1）"Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;"
In this poem, the flea is used to talk the woman into making love withthe speaker.
He said that since you might be pregnant anyway, why not go to bed with me?
Our bloods mixed together now, and that means we had some kind of relationship.
the speaker said thatthe flea sucked him and then sucked his lover.
After that, their blood inside the flea combinedtogether.
In the seventeenth century, people believed that women would be pregnant when their blood mixed with the men's blood during sexual intercourse.
So the speaker thought that he and his mistress had already created a baby in the flea because their blood mixedtogether in it, but they had no sexual intercourse.
So they did no wrong and also the woman would not lose her maidenhead.
That's why he said
(L5)"Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead".
Though you
(L6) lose your maidenhead, it's no big deal! "Yet this enjoys before it woo," Does "this" means the flea?
The flea enjoys the rapture and it needn't woo.
The flea is so lucky that it can have the ecstasy that the speaker can't have and itdoesn't spend time courting the woman!
(L8)"And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do."
This describes the satisfaction of the flea. The flea swelled because it sucked the bloods of two.
Then the speaker sighed. This little flea can enjoy the pleasure of sex but not us! It obtains more than us!
Conceit is any fanciful, ingenious expression or idea, but especially one in the form of an extended metaphor.
At the end of this stanza, the speaker said
"And pampered swells with one blood made of two"
I think that's because the flea was sucking the blood, then it's body was getting bigger and bigger, so it "swelled". But the speaker fancied that the flea was pregnant (his baby), so it "swelled" and "one blood made of two" that is because there was a baby in it and it was made by two blood (he and his mistress).
second stanza
In the second stanza, the speaker thought there were three lives (he, his mistress and their baby) inside the flea.
He said that the flea not only was their "wedding place" where they got married, but also their "marriage bed"that they could create a baby.
I think in the real life, he couldn't get together with his mistress or marry her because she and her parents objected. That's why he fancied they were met in a flea and they would live there as a shelter L6"cloistered in these living walls of jet".
Then the woman wanted to kill the flea, as the speaker fancied that he was in it, so he said she wanted to kill him. He thought that if she killed the flea, at the same time, she would kill herself "self-murder added be" and also him and their baby as all of them were in the flea.That's why he said "three sins in killing three". L4 The flea is the woman, the speaker and the marriage bed.
The speaker told the woman not to kill the flea because this is a self-murder! If the woman kill the flea, she might commit three sins.
The swelling flea is the pregnancy, in my mind.
If she killed the swelling flea, that means she killed their own baby! But she still killed the flea, cruel and sudden.
The speaker said, how could you do this to a blameless flea?
That flea is not guilty at all!
last stanza
In the last stanza, Your purple nail slaughtered the blood of innocence.
Why the speaker use "purple?"
Purple is the symbol of aristocratic and noble.
But I still can't understand why he used purple.
He also said only the woman yielded to him that the death of the flea is not wasted.
Because of fear, you killed that flea.
But there is nothing to be afraid of.
The speaker still tried to coax her.
The swelling flea is their precious baby, but the woman's cruelty made the flea died.
Only by mixing their bloods again can they have another baby. That's why the speaker tried to urge her by means of the flea.
I think the woman has killed the flea by her fingernails, so her nail infected with the flea's blood "blood of innocence". The speaker thought that's too cruel to kill the flea for it did no wrong, only has sucked a drop of her blood. Because the woman didn't make love with him and also she killed the flea, so she could save her honor. That's why the speaker said "Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me, will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee."
Donne's achievements
The poetry of Donne is characterized by complex imagery and irregularity of form. He frequently employed the conceit, an elaborate metaphor making striking syntheses of apparently unrelated objects or ideas. His intellectuality, introspection, and use of colloquial diction, seemingly unpoetic but always uniquely precise in meaning and connotation, make his poetry boldly divergent from the smooth, elegant verse of his day. The content of his love poetry, often both cynical and sensuous, represents a reaction against the sentimental Elizabethan sonnet, and this work influenced the attitudes of the Cavalier poets. Donne was almost forgotten during the 18th century, but interest in his work developed during the 19th century, and his popularity reached new heights after the 1920s, when Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot acknowledged his influence.
Metaphysical Poetry
Metaphysical Poetry is characterized by fantastically mysticism.
Metaphysical poetry is a kind of realistic, often ironic and witty, verse combing intellectual ingenuity and psychological insight written partly in reaction to the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry by such seventeenth-century poets as John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Thomas Traherne, and Andrew Marvell.
metaphysical poets,including Richard Crashaw, George Herbert, and Henry Vaughan
1.One of its hallmarks is the metaphysical conceit, a particularly arresting and ingenious type of metaphor.
By itself, metaphysicalmeans dealing with the relationship between spirit to matter or the ultimate nature of reality.
The Metaphysical poets are obviously not the only poets to deal with this subject matter, so there are a number of other qualities involved as well:
Use of ordinary speech
mixed with puns, paradoxes and conceits(a paradoxical metaphor causing a shock to the reader by the strangeness of the objects compared; some examples:
（lovers and a compass, the soul and timber, the body and mind)
The exaltation of wit, which in the 17thcentury meant a nimbleness of thought; a sense of fancy(imagination of a fantastic or whimsical nature); and originality in figures of speech
Abstruse terminology often drawn from science or law
Often poems are presented in the form of an argument
In love poetry, the metaphysical poets often draw on ideas from Renaissance Neo-Platonism to show the relationship between the soul and body and the union of lovers' souls
oThey also try to show a psychological realismwhen describing the tensions of love.
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said)
This complex doctrine of love whichembraces sexuality (the mystical union of souls, cf. Donne's "The Canonization") but which is directed to an ideal end (discussed in Plato's Symposium) is particularly evident in Donne.
Platonic love has also come to mean a love between individuals which transcends sexual desire and attains spiritual heights
The Metaphysicals were out of critical favor for the 18thand 19th centuries (obviously, the Romantic poets found little in this heavily intellectualized poetry). At the end of the 19thcentury and in the beginning of the 20thcentury, interest in this group picked up, and especially important was T.S. Eliot's famous essay "The Metaphysical Poets" (1921). Interest peaked this century with the New Critics school around mid-century, and now is tempering off a bit, though Donne, the original "Big Name" is being superceded now by interest in George Herbert, who's religious seeking and questioning seems to be hitting a critical nerve.
作者簡介
近年來,學者們對約翰 鄧恩(1572~1631)的興趣大增,尤其是現代派詩人艾略特對他更是推崇備至。鄧恩曾就讀於牛津和劍橋兩所著名學校，但未獲任何學位。儘管他從其父處繼承了一筆錢，但遠遠不能使他經濟上獲得自立。他不善經商，不得不以另一種途徑在這個世界上立足。他只得依靠智慧、幽默、情趣、學識、勇敢以及別人的恩惠。他廣泛閱讀了神學、醫學、法律和古典著作，因此在寫作中，他有時顯示出其不凡的學識、機智和幽默。
鄧恩雖婚姻美滿，但他上層的朋友們對他耿耿於懷，不肯原諒他。那些爵士解除了鄧恩的職務，並命人逮捕、拘禁了他。獲釋後，鄧恩不得不乾各種差使，以供養妻兒。30多歲的鄧恩已風光不再，他疾病纏身，窮困潦倒，鬱鬱不樂。
鄧恩出身於天主教家庭。開始他曾經斷然拒絕擔任神職。1615年，鄧恩終於成為一名卓越不凡的英國車教牧師。他的玄學風格，大膽顯露的博學多才，以及機智和幽默，都在他的布道中得到了淋漓盡致的發揮。1621年，他成為聖保羅大教堂的教長，有多篇優秀的布道文得以流傳下來。不難理解，鄧恩一生中創作了大量的宗教詩。鄧恩的詩歌與其前人和同齡人的作品迥然不同。伊莉莎白時代的詩歌大多講究雕飾，意象華麗。鄧恩通過使用一種更注重智力的比喻，激情與推理融為一體，而給詩歌重新注入了活力。他創造了極為凝鍊意象，這些意象通常包含包含著一種戲劇性對比的因素。他在詩中嘲笑傳統的愛情詩的陳詞濫調。鄧恩不僅在意象和觀念上作大膽的實驗，而且在詩的節奏和詩節形式也作創新。本瓊生曾經說到：“鄧恩在很多方面是世界上第一詩人。”
鄧恩與他其後的模仿者通常被稱為“玄學派詩人”。到19世紀末20世紀初，讀者對他的作品重新迸發出巨大興趣，仿佛發現了一塊埋藏在地下的寶玉，並且立即對現代詩歌產生了深刻的影響。當時的詩人對鄧恩所代表的那種詩風如饑似渴，想極力擺脫19世紀末浪漫主義詩歌的陳腐的語言。所有這些，都使鄧恩在英國詩人中的地位產生了天翻地覆的變化。鄧恩被公認為文學大師。艾略特對他情有獨鍾。二者的詩風有頗多的相似之處。
