FLEA
10th January 2024
Photo Credit: Science Photo Library, CANVA
RAMBURES: That island of England breeds very valiant creatures. Their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
ORLEANS: Foolish curs that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples. You may as well say that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
RAMBURES & ORLEANS: Henry V, Act 3, Scene 7
FLEA (Species in the Order Siphonaptera)
Fleas make an appearance in several Shakespeare plays including Henry IV (Part 1), Henry V, Loves Labours Lost, Merry Wives of Windsor, Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. The references are to the insect itself but also to metaphorical fleas which are small, irritating and eat blood. The reference above in Henry V is a back-handed insult to the small English forces about to engage overwhelming French forces at Agincourt. They are like Fleas on the mouth of a Lion, in that they could be seen to be brave because of their location, but they are just insignificant beasts carrying out their allocated tasks thoughtlessly and unaware of danger.
Fleas are species in the order Siphonaptera. There are 60 Flea species in the UK and around 1750 worldwide. They are parasites which live on the blood of their hosts. Their bites cause itching and can also transmit blood borne diseases from one host to another.
In the late 1500s Dr. Thomas Muffet writes in his Theatre of Insects, “Fleas are not the least plague, especially when in greater numbers they molest men that are sleeping, and they trouble wearied or sick persons.” He also writes “Nature has supplied us with a large field of remedies, that the fleas that hide themselves, and leap away from us, may be destroyed by us, and we preserved from them.” The list of remedies includes around 30 plants which can be used to make an oil to spread on the floor or in the house, will kill the Fleas. Another remedy is “a glow-worm set in the middle of the house, drives away fleas” and one definitely not to try at home: “the water or a decoction of arsenic or sublimate sprinkled, is a sure experiment to destroy them”.
More Information
Buglife: Main Groups of Insects
Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works
Muffet, T., Theatre of Insects, In Topsell, E. 1607 History of Four-Footed Beasts (accessed via Archive.org)
