"To be or not to be, that is the question," the famous line contemplating life and death from Shakespeare's "Hamlet," has a new meaning for South African scientists who now question whether the greatest playwright in the world had a taste for cannabis,
Fox News reports.
After clay pipes were recovered from the garden of
Shakespeare's home in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, eight out of 24 pipes collected contained traces of cannabis.
Time magazine noted that by using advanced chromatography methods, Peruvian cocaine was also detected on two of the clay pipes.
Francis Thackeray, a professor at the University of Witwatersrand, noted in his research that several kinds of tobacco were known to early 17th-century Englishmen. Thackery also wrote an academic paper questioning hemp as a source of inspiration for Shakespeare.
While hemp was widely used for the production of rope, clothing, paper and medical use, some believe that
Shakespeare used and wrote about his recreational used of the drug.
Although there is no conclusive evidence that Shakespeare actually used cannabis, Time notes that the new study is encouraging for Shakespeare scholars.
"Literary analyses and chemical science can be mutually beneficial, bringing the arts and the sciences together in an effort to better understand Shakespeare and his contemporaries," the study reads.
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