In John Donne’s “The Bait”, a speaker beacons his beloved inviting her to “come live with me and be my love” (1384 line 1). He uses a fish metaphor to explain how he is ‘baited’ by her charms, describing how fish are lured to her hook and unable to escape her bait. This ensnaring feature is contrasted when the speaker notes how others have to use deceit, trapping and trickery to lure fish while she does so honestly, making her even more enticing. However, John Donne’s attitude toward the speaker seems ironic and serves as a warning to other men to avoid such an allure of seduction as it ultimately leads to a loss of identity.
The speaker recognizes that he is overcome by her luring attributes but becomes more and more aware throughout the poem that he is unable to escape her bait. He has fallen so deeply under her spell that he can no longer find a way to break free from it. He claims that the fish are “Begging themselves they may betray” (1384 line 8) in a sense that they desperately seek the woman and are willing to give their lives for her so she can catch them. Donne’s specific word choice of “betray” leads the reader to think that by becoming enamored with a woman, the fish willingly and actively give themselves up to her. Metaphorically it is plausible that the fishes’ lives are the men’s identities. When they give themselves up to this lure, they lose a sense of self because they become consumed in that other person. Similarly, when the speaker claims “If thou, to be so seen, beest loath, By sun or moon, thou darkenest both” (1384 line 13-14) he implies that the woman shines brighter than both the sun and the moon. Donne’s specific diction in the word “darkness” suggests a danger in her allure and once caught in it, one becomes ‘dark’ and disillusioned. The speaker forsakes the natural light of the moon for the charm of the woman when he notes “I need not their light, having thee” (1384 line 16), essentially leaving him in an eternal darkness, trapped by his love for the woman.
Donne’s ironic depiction of the fish points to a relationship that is not symbiotic, meaning only one side will benefit. The one sided relationship becomes apparent in the prepositional phrase that the fish are “gladder to catch thee, than thou him” (1384 line 12). This suggests that the woman is not concerned for the fish and possibly has self serving motives. All of the fishes energy to be in her presence becomes useless because she is not invested in the fish. Perhaps this is why the speaker notes “that fish that is not catched thereby, Alas, is wiser far than I” (1384 line 27-28). He is trying to point out that men who are able to avoid temptation are better off because they won’t be ‘caught’ and inevitably unable to escape. In this aversion, they will not become consumed in another which will allow them to maintain a strong sense of individual identity.