Posted on 07/09/2011 2:03:24 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A South African anthropologist has asked permission to open the graves of William Shakespeare and his family to determine, among other things, what killed the Bard and whether his poems and plays may have been composed under the influence of marijuana.
But while Shakespeare's skeleton could reveal clues about his health and death, the question of the man's drug use depends on the presence of hair, fingernails or toenails in the grave, said Francis Thackeray, the director of the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, who floated the proposal to the Church of England.
Thackeray conducted a study in 2001, which found evidence of marijuana residueon pipe fragments found in Shakespeare's garden. Cannabis was grown in England at the time and was used to make textiles and rope. Some Shakespearian allusions, including a mention of a "noted weed" in Sonnet 76, spurred Thackeray's inquiry into whether Shakespeare may have used the mind-altering drug for inspiration.
"If there is any hair, if there is any keratin from the fingernails or toenails, then we will be in a position to undertake chemical analysis on extremely small samples for marijuana," Thackeray told LiveScience.
A poet's curse
Whether or not Shakespeare smoked pot, he certainly didn't want his remains disrupted. The stone covering the poet's grave carries an engraved curse for any would-be intruders.
"Blessed be the man that spares these stones," the engraving reads, "And cursed be he who moves my bones." [8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]
Thackeray said he has a way around the Bard's curse.
"We don't want to move any of the bones," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
“Doobie, or not doobie... that is the question...”
awesome, lol
It’s just not possible to be that clever. Nope! I did not read that post I must be dreaming.
YE YT YT are (very common) misspelling of þe (the) and þt (that). The rune Þ (thorn) was (along with eth, Ð and ð) used for the th-sound in english well into the 17th century.
The Þ was often stylized on signs and looked like a Y to many people who aren’t familiar with the rune, e.g. Þe olde tea shoppe is mistakenly read as ye olde tea shoppe...at no point has english used ‘ye’ as a definite article (’se’ was used in old english along with ‘the’), etc.
Even without looking at a pic of the engraving it is virtually certain that shakespeare’s epitath, if the original, has some form of thorn, not y, in those places.
You didn’t ask any of this, of course, but it is not well known and may be interesting to some readers. Even Lovecraft fell for the ‘ye’ article in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
Thackeray sounds like he might be a pothead.
Now THAT’S funny :>)
Who doth care?
Outstanding. LOL!
The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
I would hope that his friends used the good stuff at the wake instead of interring it with his bones.
They didn’t have much wine as we know it in Eng then. It was mostly ale and cider.
Ben Jonson knew he was.
'Julius Caesar'.
I would hope that his friends used the good stuff at the wake instead of interring it with his bones.
I'm not familiar with that one:)
Well said !
That is interesting. I knew roughly what his epitaph was but decided to look it up. That was the way it showed so I just copied it.
Anyway it is clear Shakespeare didn’t want anyone to mess with his grave.
Now that is one of the all-time best puns I have ever seen on Free Republic. Wit personified.
I got curious. The image of his actual graven epitaph most certainly has Y, with letters appended in the exponent area.
I am assuming that this is a stylization during the period of transition away from use of thorn, eth, and ash (Æ and æ). The wikipedia page (a good source for anything beyond the ability of modern politics to corrupt) suggests that printing presses didn’t support the runes, and Y was often used as a substitute despite not being pronounced that way.
Shakespeare’s english would have had very little old norse influence, as the vikings never conquered wessex in the 9th century (they did conquer most of the rest of england). His plays still use the old english third-person singular -eth verb ending, rather than the -s in the rest of england. (telleth, rather than tells). He also, iirc, uses the old second-person sing. pronoun, Thou, thy, thine.
The english we speak today is more the london variant, which was heavily influenced by old norse, and even after all the influence french later had, still is iirc something like 10-15% words directly descended from old norse words that entered the language. It is also suggested by many philologists that we have the danelaw to thank for the almost total end of the old english declension system and possibly gender too (think german, etc.) We only have the genitive today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_%28pronoun%29
It is a known fact that Thomas Jefferson occassionally filled his pipe with hemp.
hemp was grown in the south, but what is sold in the US as marijuana is much stronger than was sold in the 1960’s...
it’s like the difference between 2 percent beer (a mild calming effect) and whiskey. Think Hashish...
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