South African scientists have discovered that 400-year-old tobacco pipes excavated from the garden of William Shakespeare contained cannabis, suggesting the playwright might have written some of his famous works while high.
Residue from early 17th century clay pipes found in the playwright’s garden, and elsewhere in Stratford-Upon-Avon, were analysed in Pretoria using a sophisticated technique called gas chromatography mass spectrometry, the Independent reports.
Of the 24 fragments of pipe loaned from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to University of the Witwatersrand, cannabis was found in eight samples, four of which came from Shakespeare's property.
I can remember reading MacBeth in high school and thinking when I got to the dead baby scene that Will must have been high when he came up with that, looks like I was right! :D
Just think what he could create today, with all of the availability of primo strains of pot with their various psychoactive effects.
Yes, indeed! He might have been a really famous playwright, known around the world, with his plays being performed, studied and written about in schools, universities and other venues, 500 years after his death. Wow, imagine being that good!
LOis
Just think what he could create today, with all of the availability of primo strains of pot with their various psychoactive effects.
Yes, indeed! He might have been a really famous playwright, known around the world, with his plays being performed, studied and written about in schools, universities and other venues, 500 years after his death. Wow, imagine being that good!
LOis
Then, again, he might have just wound up having a really good time playing videogames, and not doing much else.
Just think what he could create today, with all of the availability of primo strains of pot with their various psychoactive effects.
Yes, indeed! He might have been a really famous playwright, known around the world, with his plays being performed, studied and written about in schools, universities and other venues, 500 years after his death. Wow, imagine being that good!
LOis
Then, again, he might have just wound up having a really good time playing videogames, and not doing much else. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Fun stuff here. but I’m f’n supposed to engage in and write an essay with a rock-hard deadline coming at me fast.
Amazing what can be found with some judicious web surfing: :coolsmile: happy trails to you . . .
by Stephen J. Gertz
Said of John Taylor (1580 - 1653)
“The Water Poet" -
(his primary source of income derived from his profession as a waterman,
the trade of boatmen who ferried passengers across the Thames -
his poetry, while far from gemstone,
was notable for its diamond wit and keen observations of the contemporary social and cultural scene.)
“Sweet sacred Muses, my invention raise
Unto the life, to write great Hempseeds praise..."
So begins The Praise of Hemp-seed
Of what use is hemp?
“This grain grows to a stalk, whose coat or skin
Good industry doth hatchell twist, and spin,
And for mans best advantage and availes
It makes clothes, cordage, halters, ropes and sailes."
Taylor enumerates the many manufacturers and trades dependent upon hemp, not the least of which are pharmacy:
“Apothecaries were not worth a pin,
If Hempseed did not bring their commings in;
Oyles, Unguents, Sirrops, Minerals, and Baulmes,
(All nature’s treasures, and th’Almighties almes),
Emplasters, Simples, Compounds, sundry drugs
With Necromanticke names like fearful Bugs,
Fumes, Vomits, purges, that both cures, and kils,
Extractions, conserves, preserves, potions, pils,
Elixirs, simples, compounds, distillations,
Gums in abundance, brought from foreign nations."
All manner of physical complaint is relieved.
“Most serviceable Hempseed but for thee, These helpes for man could not thus scattered be."
One of the more notable aspects of The Praise of Hempseed is that
within Taylor acknowledges the death of Shakespeare four years earlier and his place in poetry’s firmament;
he was the first poet to do so:
“In paper, many a poet now survives
Or else their lines had perish’d with their lives.
Old Chaucer, Gower, and Sir Thomas More,
Sir Philip Sidney, who the laurel wore,
Spenser, and Shakespeare did in art excell,
Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nash, Daniel,
Sylvester, Beaumont, Sir John Harrington.
Forgetfulness their works would over run
But that in paper they immortally
Do live in spite of death, and cannot die."
Taylor may have known William Shakespeare.
In The True Cause of the Waterman’s Suit Concerning Players (1613 or 1614)
he writes about the waterman’s dispute with London theater companies,
which in 1612 had moved from the south bank of the Thames to the north,
thus depriving the ferrymen of lucrative traffic.
January 13, 2011
The Elizabethan Poem in Praise of Cannabis
by Stephen J. Gertz
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And so on and so forth.
:)
Pipes Show Cocaine [and other psychoactive substances] Smoked in Shakespeare's England
By Ed Stoddard - http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/news/shakespeare1.htm
03/01/2001
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Was William Shakespeare partial to a good deal more than a pinch of tobacco while composing his sonnets?
That proves it right there! I knew old Bill was sparkin’ a fatty when he wrote the “Tempest” and “A Midsummer Nights Dream”. I had to read them for a Shakespeare class in college and never could, no wait a minute, oh yeah, I was sparkin’ the fatty while READING the plays. And I’m telling ya that was some really good shit! Thanks Will for being the stoner Bard and inventing all of those cool words like O’clock.
Cap’t Jack
