Ken Lane responds to smeared Shakespeare comment

'Jarl Sigurd' infers from Canada that Shakespeare may have been a drug addict.

That assumption is raised by some who might wish it so.

I doubt it.

Let's prove a point! Most people can argue their own pioint of view, BUT hearing is believing!

I would be glad to swap my live singing on the phone with anyone who calls me at (973) 335-0111 or (973) 541-1678.

No collect calls accepted, however.

If one would like to hear my Carnegie Hall live CDs, on the phone or to purchase them from the many stores in NYC and abroad, fine, too!

Kenneth Lane, Wagnerian heldentenor

IIRC there was some research done on Shakespeare's clay pipes in which traces of concaine were detected in some of them. I think this research only came out this year. I'm fairly sure there was a small article in the Times about it.

Did cocaine even EXIST in Shakespeare's time and vicinity? (Or morphine or heroin or marijuana?) Seems to me opium was the only drug around, then - and I'm not sure even THAT had reached Britain in Elizbethan times. (Poor primitives, they mostly only had alcohol to get stoned on!)

Evelyn Vogt Gamble (Divamanque) wrote in message

The article appeared on Friday March 02 2001 in The Times under the title:

Shakespeare may have smoked his dark lady By Helen Rumbelow

part of the article said :

Two of the 24 pipes they tested bore traces of cocaine, the first time the drug has been found in Europe before the 19th century.

Its quite an interesting article.

Did the article say the pipes were Shakespeare's, or were they 'of the period'?

no contamination , and the results are repeatable, one begins to wonder if there was an old world source of cocaine or some substance which on decay is very like it. One must be careful though with contamination. IF an archaeologist was to analyse a dog turd from L.A. in five hundred years time he might deduce our four footed friends had habits. Lab results are one thing, what deductions we draw from them can be very subjective and another John Carter Barsoom

This posting is a bit tangled. Two replies have been compressed into one.

It says:

The Bard, a married father of three children, was linked to the drug by forensic analysis of pipes found in his home at Stratford Upon Avon.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/ Search on Shakespeare Look in the first group listed, its shown as Shakespeare may have smoked his dark lady

Quite right.