The Flea原文

注释

译文

中文赏析

英文赏析(first stanza second stanza last stanza Donne's achievement Metaphysical Poetry)

作者简介

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.

注释

1. thou：在古英语里，是表示you 的主格形式。

2. thee：在古英语里，是表示 you 的宾格形式。

3. And in this flea our two bloods mingled be：这一句是这首诗的关键句，道出“在这只跳蚤的身体里，我们两个人的血液相互交融。”

4. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare：“哦，你先等一等，不要掐死这只跳蚤，因为它（吸了两人的血）集三条生命于一身。”

5. grudge：厌恶，怨恨。

6. use：=habit, 习惯。

7. sacrilege：亵渎神圣。

8.hast：在古英语里 ，相当于 have 的第二人称单数的现在式，主词为 thou 。

9.purpled thy nail： thy用在古英语里，相当于your，你的。掐死了跳蚤，所以鲜血染红了指甲，变成了“紫色”。由此可见，诗人的语言非常滑稽有趣。

译文

跳蚤

约翰·邓恩

看呀，这只跳蚤，叮在这里，

你对我的拒绝多么微不足道；

它先叮我，现在又叮你，

我们的血液在它体内溶和；

你知道这是不能言说的

罪恶、羞耻、贞操的丢失，

它没有向我们请求就得到享受，

饱餐了我们的血滴后大腹便便，

这种享受我们无能企及。

住手，一只跳蚤，三条生命啊，

它的身体不只是见证我们的婚约。

还是你和我，我们的婚床，婚姻的殿堂；

父母怨恨，你不情愿，我们还是相遇，

并躲藏在黝黑的有生命的墙院里。

尽管你会习惯地拍死跳蚤，

千万别，这会杀了我，也增加你的自杀之罪，

杀害三条生命会亵渎神灵。

多么残忍，你毫无犹豫

用无辜的鲜血染红自己的指甲？

它不过吸了你一滴血

罪不至死啊？

你却以胜利者的口吻说

你我并没有因失血而有些虚弱；

的确，担心不过是虚惊一场：

接受我的爱，

你的名誉不会有丝毫损失，

就象跳蚤之死不会让你的生命有所损失。

中文赏析

这是邓恩被收录最多的诗篇之一。诗作以诗人向情人求爱的说话体写成，语气富有调侃，比附出乎通常想象，推理和结论也超乎意料，典型反映了邓恩式的奇想。

诗的语气和结构富有典型的邓恩式戏剧性：第一段中，诗人看见了那只先后叮过两人的跳蚤，便指着它向情人证明两人的鲜血已通过一只先后叮咬了双方的跳蚤融为一体，而血的交融则意味着生命的交融，诗人因此推断，两人的生命已经在事实上结合在一起了；第二段，诗人发现情人正抬手欲向跳蚤打去，便急忙劝阻，说这样一来，被害的就是三条性命（你、我、跳蚤）；第三段时，对方显然已经下手，掐死了跳蚤，所以诗人戏谑地称对方为“残忍”、“用无辜者的鲜血把自己的指甲染得红紫”。这时，对方回答说，虽然“我”的血也在它（跳蚤）体内，可我并没有因为它的死而有半分虚弱，诗人话锋一转，直接切入主题：既然如此，你答应我的求爱对你的名誉也不会有分毫的损失。更有意思的是，这样的结尾，恰好使读者恍然大悟，在诗篇开始之前，诗人正绞尽脑汁想说服情人接受他的求爱呢。

英文赏析

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 achievement

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.

作者简介

近年来,学者们对约翰 邓恩(1572~1631)的兴趣大增,尤其是现代派诗人艾略特对他更是推崇备至。邓恩曾就读于牛津和剑桥两所学校，但未获任何学位。尽管他从其父处继承了一笔钱，但远远不能使他经济上获得自立。他不善经商，不得不以另一种途径在这个世界上立足。他只得依靠智慧、幽默、情趣、学识、勇敢以及别人的恩惠。他广泛阅读了神学、医学、法律和古典著作，因此在写作中，他有时显示出其不凡的学识、机智和幽默。

邓恩虽婚姻美满，但他上层的朋友们对他耿耿于怀，不肯原谅他。那些爵士解除了邓恩的职务，并命人逮捕、拘禁了他。获释后，邓恩不得不干各种差使，以供养妻儿。30多岁的邓恩已风光不再，他疾病缠身，穷困潦倒，郁郁不乐。

邓恩出身于天主教家庭。开始他曾经断然拒绝担任神职。1615年，邓恩终于成为一名卓越不凡的英国车教牧师。他的玄学风格，大胆显露的博学多才，以及机智和幽默，都在他的布道中得到了淋漓尽致的发挥。1621年，他成为圣保罗大教堂的教长，有多篇优秀的布道文得以流传下来。不难理解，邓恩一生中创作了大量的宗教诗。邓恩的诗歌与其前人和同龄人的作品迥然不同。伊丽莎白时代的诗歌大多讲究雕饰，意象华丽。邓恩通过使用一种更注重智力的比喻，激情与推理融为一体，而给诗歌重新注入了活力。他创造了极为凝炼意象，这些意象通常包含包含着一种戏剧性对比的因素。他在诗中嘲笑传统的爱情诗的陈词滥调。邓恩不仅在意象和观念上作大胆的实验，而且在诗的节奏和诗节形式也作创新。本琼生曾经说到：“邓恩在很多方面是世界上第一诗人。”

邓恩与他其后的模仿者通常被称为“玄学派诗人”。到19世纪末20世纪初，读者对他的作品重新进发出巨大兴趣，仿佛发现了一块埋藏在地下的宝玉，并且立即对现代诗歌产生了深刻的影响。当时的诗人对邓恩所代表的那种诗风如饥似渴，想极力摆脱19世纪末浪漫主义诗歌的陈腐的语言。所有这些，都使邓恩在英国诗人中的地位产生了天翻地覆的变化。邓恩被公认为文学大师。艾略特对他情有独钟。二者的诗风有颇多的相似之处。