Shakespeare the Stoner, 17th century

“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”

– William Shakespeare

A Bravo Smoking – Hendrick Terbrugghen – 1626

Shakespeare the Stoner

Have you ever sat through a Shakespeare production and thought to yourself he must have been high, well…

Whenever the subject of what is being smoked in the pipes of artist throughout time is brought up, Tobacco is echoed over and over. But is this true or just the winning victor of histories milkshake?

The question has to be asked what was smoked in those pipes of old?

A South African Residue Study of clay pipes from the Stratford-Upon-Avon area dating to the 17th century was completed in 2001.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust provided fragments of kaolin clay pipes, some unearthed from the garden at Shakespeare’s residence and all dating from the 1600s.

clay pipes from the South African residue study

“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.”

-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 76

Originally the study didn’t have the “unequivocal evidence of cannabis” use in the pipes… But as the results were studied researchers realized the presence of cannabibiol (the chemical presence of burnt cannabis) was the evidence…

South African Journal of Science, January 2001