The weed or not the weed, that is the question
William Shakespeare (Photo: AFP)
There have been many speculations in the past about Shakespeare smoking cannabis while he wrote his plays, a new peice of evidence has surfaced that proves the Bard dabbled with drugs.
According to reports, a new test conducted by a team in South Africa found cannabis residue inside Shakespeare's tobbaco pipes. The pipes are 400 years old but were analysed by a new technology called gas chromatohraphy mass spectrometry.
According to the study, Francis Thackeray and his team from South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand were loaned 24 tobacco pipe fragments from Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon property by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Eight tested positive for cannabis residue and two had remnants of Peruvian cocaine.
Shakespeare's use of drugs is not very surprising given the experimental nature of Elizabethan medicine however the Bard may have been using it for creative titillation. The Bard has also mentioned weed in sonnet 76, where he says "an invention in a noted weed', this could a possible reference to his drug usage.
The study was published in South African Journal of Science.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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