[Elfsea] Shakespeare on drugs??

[Tessa Nieto]

Hi Everyone!

I found this on CNN.com and was completely stunned!

"Drugs Clue to Shakespare's Genius?"

STRATFORD, England -- William Shakespeare may have
relied on more than his genius to write his plays and
sonnets, scientists say.

Researchers have unearthed fragments of clay pipes
dating back to the 17th century near the garden of
England's greatest playwright which have shown traces
of cocaine and hallucinogenic drugs.

The bard would join other illustrious English literary
figures if the link was proven such as Coleridge and
Byron who took their inspiration from drugs.

While there is no proof Shakespeare himself took
drugs, evidence suggests he and his contemporaries
might have had access to narcotics.

Cannabis sativa, the plant from which marijuana is
derived was available in Elizabethan England to be
used for paper, rope, garments and sails.

But it had not been realised that cocaine had been
around at the same time -- records have only shown it
existing up to 200 years ago.

The cocaine was discovered by South African scientists
in two of 24 pipe fragments examined.

Dr Francis Thackeray, a paleontologist at the
Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, who co-wrote the article
which appeared in the latest edition of the South
African Journal of Science, said the discovery was
"really quite remarkable."

"The Spanish had access to it at that time in the
Americas, but the fact that it was smoked in England
at that time is a first. It is quite a find."

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in
Stratford-Upon-Avon permitted researchers to perform
chemical tests on its 24 pipe fragments from its
museum collection.

They included samples from Shakespeare's house at New
Place in Stratford-upon-Avon, and a number of other
nearby sites.

The two pipe stems which bore unexpected traces of
cocaine came from the Stratford home of the mother of
John Harvard, the South African scientists say. The
other was thought to be from Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

Other fragments showed signs of myristic acid, a
hallucinogen derived from plants such as nutmeg, and
cannabis, as well as tobacco and camphor.

Thackeray added: "We do not claim that any of the
pipes belonged to Shakespeare himself.

"However, we do know that some of the pipes come from
the area in which he lived, and they date to the 17th
century."

The scientists say their findings may lend weight to
the hypothesis that "at least some of Shakespeare's
texts were associated with the use or at least
knowledge of the effect of certain hallucinogenic
substances".

Sonnet 76, for instance, refers to a "noted weed" and
"compounds strange", while in Sonnet 27, Shakespeare
talks of "a journey in his head".

However literary critics have interpreted "noted weed"
as meaning a well known garment or style of dress, and
"compounds strange" to mean an unusual word
construction or medicinal mixture.

But Ann Donnelly, curator of the Shakespeare
Birthplace Trust museum, remains sceptical -- and
refuses to believe the Bard may have been inspired by
drugs.

She said: "People love to come up with reasons for
saying Shakespeare was not a genius. I don't think
there's any proof that he was helped in any way by
taking narcotic substances."

Reuters contributed to this report.


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The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope with our music to move the stars.
- - - Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

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