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A Stoned Shakespeare?

Some years ago, the media announced the research findings of Merwe and Thackeray concerning

William Shakespeares alleged consumption of marihuana. According to a Brazilian newspaper

(Folha de So Paulo), the investigators first suspected the bard was a drug addict when they found

references to marihuana in his Sonnet #76. Merwe and Thackeray point to the expression "notedweed", and believe the weed must be tobacco prepared from Cannabis sativa - or marihuana asmost people would call it. However, the convenience of arguing that something is written in

Shakespeare or in the Bible lies in that nobody actually looks it up or asks for a complete quote with

references to the original. Let us proceed differently this time: Let us have a look at Sonnet #76.

Why is my verse so barren of new pride?

So far from variation or quick change?Why, with the time, do I not glance aside

To new-found methods and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O know, sweet love, I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent;For as the Sun is daily new and old,

So is my love still telling what is told

Needless to say, Sonnet #76 tells us that Shakespeare, who is not vain or concerned with notoriety,

prefers to repeat the old truths about love, rather than take up novel writing methods and fads. Just

as the Sun which rises in the morning is the selfsame Sun which set the night before, so the love

Shakespeare bespeaks is the same old love which we have heard of from the wise since the world

began. The general meaning is quite clear, I think (though the sonnet may contain many yet finer

shades of meaning).

But where did Merwe and Thackeray get the idea that Shakespeare was praising the effects of

marihuana smoking upon his creative genius? Let us look up the word "weed" in the dictionary:Apart from the meanings of the word in modern English, in the early seventeenth century "weed"

used to mean "garment" or "clothing" (see the second entry for the word in Websters EncyclopedicUnabridged Dictionary of the English Language (page 1618). And let us also have a look at whatthe scholar Alexander Schmidt says in his seminal Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary(published in 1902): The word "weed" was used throughout Shakespeares work, without exception,

as a noun with the meaning "garment" (page 1347). Line 6 from Sonnet #76 is given as an example

under the entry. So the slang expression "weed", meaning "marihuana", createdI

believesometime in the 20th century, could not have been in use at Shakespeares time, that is,

before 1616.

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Lines 11 and 12 of Sonnet #76 make the idea of garment perfectly clear: Shakespeare is talking

about dressing old truths in new words. Marihuana? Yes, in and out of Merwes and Thackerays

lungs.

But didnt the media say something about pipes? Technical analyses carried out by the South

African Police Department show evidence of marihuana and cocaine residues in pipes supplied by aStratford-on-Avon-based museum. But says Thackeray: "We are not saying the pipes actually

belonged to Shakespeare [...]some of them came from the area where he lived" (quoted fromFolhade So Paulo). Given Merwe and Thackerays initial suspicion (based as it was on sheer ignorance,or possibly on something worse than ignorance), what are we to think of the curious coincidence of

finding marihuana residues in pipes whose first owners back in the seventeenth century remain

unknown to us? What are we to think of a study which suggests cocaine and marihuana addiction

to be apparently commonplace in 1616? What to think of the media and of the scientific community

which, it seems, lend support to such hypotheses without at least looking up a word or two in the

dictionary?

Merwe and Thackeray drew the conclusion that "Shakespeare may have used marihuana as asource of inspiration" (quote fromFolha de So Paulo). If the hypothesis of the bard extolling the

effects of hashish (which I believe I have refuted sufficiently) were valid, why didnt they draw the

opposite conclusion? Any honest researcher would have marveled at the fact that Shakespearein

Merwe and Thackerays twisted view of things a drug addictmanaged to write a number of works

of extraordinary richness and perennial values, just as Beethoven, who could barely hear, managed

to compose some of the worlds best symphonies.

Merwe and Thackerays study was published in the South African Journal of Science.