How a centuries-old poem hints at Shakespeare’s herbal ‘muse’
- Francis Thackeray
Material unearthed from William Shakespeare’s garden and hometown suggests that the famed British playwright smoked cannabis.
Now a 400-year-old poem offers literary evidence to support this hypothesis.
The person behind the poem is a “John Taylor”. British engraver George Vertue spoke of a person named John Taylor, whom he described as an actor and painter – and perhaps the very artist responsible for the famed “Chandos portrait” of Shakespeare. This was painted some time between 1600 and 1610 and is now on display at London’s National Portrait Gallery. Vertue called Taylor an “intimate friend” of Shakespeare.
Then there’s the poem, published in 1620 and entitled “The Praise of hemp-seed”. It was penned under the name John Taylor, although he was perhaps not the same individual as the artist described above.
“The Praise of hemp-seed” refers to Shakespeare in the context of the use of hemp (cannabis) for paper on which famous writers' plays and poems were printed. On deeper reading, it may suggest that hemp was more than just a material for paper – it was a “muse” for Shakespeare and his peers.
The poem in question
Here is the relevant text from Folio Part III, page 72, with modernised spelling based on Taylor (1620):
In Paper, many a Poet now survives
Or else their lines had perished with their lives.
Old Chaucer, Gower, and Sir Thomas More,
Sir Philip Sidney who the Laurel wore,
Spencer, and Shakespeare did in Art excel,
Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nash, Daniel,
Silvester, Beaumont, Sir John Harington,
Forgetfulness their works would over run,
But that in Paper they immortally Do live
in spite of Death, and cannot die.
Taylor argues that writers “survive” through their work, which was published for posterity on paper produced from hemp, or cannabis. It is worth pointing out here that the cannabis plant was illustrated and referred to as “hemp” by botanist John Gerard as far back as 1597.
This is analogous to verse in Shakespeare’s own sonnets. I have previously found that in Sonnet 11 when the poet writes “Nature … meant thereby thou should'st print more, nor let that copy die”, he could be appealing metaphorically for the reproduction or propagation of hemp – from which paper was produced – and the publication of poetry (“copy”) into the future.
Shakespeare may be saying here that his writings were “born” from the use of “a noted weed”, a term associated with tobacco, which can include cannabis.
Apart from paper, cannabis fibre was also used for clothing in 17th-century Europe. It is pertinent to mention that in Afrikaans, a language derived from 17th century Dutch and Flemish dialects, the word hemp refers to a shirt as an item of clothing.
Thus “weed” in Shakespeare’s time referred to both clothing and tobacco, and The Bard is famous for his wordplay. In Sonnet 76, there is clearly a link between clothing and poetry, as in “All my best is dressing old words new”. This is the same sonnet in which Shakespeare writes:
… invention in a noted weed.
There is absolutely no doubt that “invention” can refer to creative writing, potentially associated with a source of inspiration – or Muse – in the context of cryptic wordplay.
A muse of a different kind
Taylor’s poem, too, refers to the “Muse” in the context of hemp:
But hollow Muse what mounted to the sky,
I’ll clip your soaring plumes for you and I
Must talk of Paper, Hemp, and such as this,
And what a rich commodity it is.
My interpretation of this verse is: “I must talk of cannabis (hemp) only in the context of its use as paper. I can’t talk about cannabis as a source of inspiration since the wings of the Muse are clipped.”
This view could well relate to prohibition and censure associated with cannabis. It had been condemned by the church long before Shakespeare was active.
All of these observations are relevant to my view that Shakespeare may have smoked cannabis and perceived it as a source of inspiration. This is supported in part by chemical analysis of clay “tobacco” pipes from Shakespeare’s garden at New Place and elsewhere in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon indicating the smoking of cannabis.
Author’s note: I am most grateful to Chris Bennett for directing my attention to the “The Praise of Hemp-seed” by John Taylor (1620). Francis Thackeray, Phillip Tobias Chair in Palaeoanthropology, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
It takes more than bees to ward off elephants
- Mduduzi Ndlovu
Elephant populations in southern Africa’s national parks have increased dramatically in recent years.
As a result of their booming numbers, vast dietary requirements and expansive ranges, elephants sometimes roam outside the borders of protected areas in search of food.
Farmers in communities surrounding national parks rely heavily on subsistence agriculture for food and income. Unfortunately, when elephants venture into these human settlements, they cause significant damage to crops and property resulting in major financial losses to rural farmers.
This behaviour, referred to as crop raiding, represents the root cause of human-elephant conflict throughout southern Africa.
Farmers have resorted to a host of preventative measures to ensure that the elephants stay away from their property. These include the use of loud noises, fire, and chilli paste. Some may be effective in deterring raiding elephants, but there are drawbacks. They require constant vigilance; they can expose farmers to a charging elephant; they are labour intensive; and, in the case of chilli paste, require repeated application.
A recent paper has proposed using a fabricated bee threat to deter elephants in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
Bees as a deterrent
Using African honeybees as an elephant deterrent is not a novel concept. Lucy King and colleagues have been toying with the idea in east Africa for some time now. They have found that audio playback of disturbed bee sounds can induce elephants to retreat. They have also found that beehive fences may prove more effective in protecting rural farmlands than traditional thorn fences.
Despite these previous investigations, bees have never been used as a management tool in South Africa – until now. The recent study conducted experimental trials in the Kruger to assess the responses of wild African elephants to a bee threat.
The paper evaluated the responses of elephants to five experimental treatments:
control noise;
buzzing bee noise;
control noise with honey scent;
honey scent; and
bee noise with honey scent.
Elephant responses were classified into 11 possible behaviours, ranging from attentive to threatening.
The response of the elephants
Elephants exposed to the mixed stimulus treatment of bee noise with honey scent displayed cautious and defensive behaviours. Fifteen of the 21 elephants fled the vicinity. But, on their own, neither the noise nor scent elicited an equally dramatic response. In other words, independent stimuli (angry bee noise or honey scent) did not adequately convince elephants of a realistic bee threat.
Elephant curiosity was captured, but only for a brief moment, by the isolated sound of angry bees or the distant scent of honey. Neither induced an avoidance response.
In previous east African studies elephants responded differently. They fled at the mere sound of bees. The discrepancy in responses between elephants in the east African studies and the South African study may be explained by the unique dynamics and pressures that characterise elephant populations in southern Africa.
Elephant populations in east Africa are shrinking as a result of poaching and are also becoming more skittish and wary of disturbances in their environment. However, elephant densities are steadily increasing in protected areas throughout southern Africa.
These dynamics may contribute to a more confident elephant population in South Africa, making them less susceptible to disturbance by an unconvincing bee threat.
Ultimately, it makes sense that these intelligent animals would rely on multiple stimuli to assess risk and navigate their surroundings; managers must account for this as they move forward in developing effective elephant deterrents.
Although isolated auditory and olfactory cues proved ineffective in deterring elephants in the Kruger Park, the success of the mixed stimulus treatment implicates live bees as a viable management tool. If South African elephants are not convinced by a fabricated bee threat, perhaps they require the real thing to induce a lasting avoidance response.
The same researchers have embarked on answering this question in a current study in the Kruger National Park, with a particular focus on using beehives to selectively deter elephants from overly utilised watering points.
Bees represent a promising tool for managing elephant movements with potential to contribute to long-term conservation of the species by offering an alternative to lethal management of problem elephants.
Progress report on promises made to improve South Africa’s health services
- Jill Murray, Fatima Suleman and Robert Pattinson
Over the last three years South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has made several promises to improve health care in his annual state of the nation address.
This includes fighting TB, improving life expectancy and reducing maternal, infant and under five mortality. Health and Medicine Editor Candice Bailey asked a panel of academics to assess whether the promises have been kept.
In 2013 the president spoke of integrating HIV and TB services because of the high co-infection between the two. Has this happened? Did it work?
Professor Jill Murray: The government has moved very well to integrate HIV and TB services. The latest figure from the South African Department of Health is that 73% of patients who have TB are also HIV positive.
Obviously problems arise in integrating these services. Both TB and HIV were previously stand-alone programmes and each had their own dedicated staff, budgets and sites. In combining the two there have been issues around upskilling the doctors and the nurses who are responsible for implementing the programmes at grass roots. They have also had to explain to patients why the programmes need to be joined. All of this takes time. But integrating the services is happening well across the country.
In 2015, he promised to implement TB programmes for prisoners, mine-workers and mining town communities. Has it happened?
Professor Jill Murray: Although these programmes have been slow to start - this is a conversation that has been happening for about seven or eight years - they have picked up pace recently and there is a big push for implementation over the coming year.
Various international donors are working the with governments of 10 Southern African countries and will be granting money for project implementation within the next month or so.
The programmes will be put in place across southern Africa as many of the region’s miners are migrants. It therefore doesn’t help to only implement programmes in South Africa. TB knows no borders. It is also important to note that the programmes will involve identifying former miners who have developed mine related diseases and helping them to access compensation.
Improving South Africa’s life expectancy from 60 years in 2012 to 63 by 2019 was on the top of the president’s agenda in 2014. Are we on track?
Professor Robert Pattinson: Yes, we are on track to meet and exceed this target. The 2013 Rapid Mortality Surveillance Report shows that the life expectancy at birth in 2013 was 62.2 years. This is broken down into 59.4 years for men and 65.1 years for women. One would reasonably expect the trend to continue. The major reason for this is the success of the HIV screening and treatment programme.
Zuma has pushed to further reduce child and maternal mortality by improving quality of care in the public sector. Is this happening?
Professor Robert Pattinson: Yes, the number of maternal and child deaths for each birth has been dropping rapidly. The maternal mortality ratio has dropped from 252 deaths for every 100 000 live births in 2009 to around 197 per 100 000 live births in 2012. In that four year period, there were 424 fewer maternal deaths. This averages 85 fewer deaths per year from 2009 to 2014.
The under 5 mortality rate has dropped to 41 deaths for every 1 000 births from 56 for every 1 000 births. Similarly, the infant mortality rate came down from 39 deaths for every 1 000 infants that were born to 29 for every 1 000 births. In terms of newborn deaths, in 2009, there were 14 deaths for every 1 000 births. This dropped to 11 by 2013, according to the latest statistics.
The major reason for these declines has been the success of the HIV screening and treatment programme. The programme would not be successful if the health care professionals were not providing quality of care in this programme. Unfortunately the reduction in child deaths seems to be levelling off.
In 2015 he also said that Ketlaphela, a state-owned pharmaceutical company, would start supplying antiretrovirals to the Department of Health. What’s happened?
Professor Fatima Suleman: The government’s Ketlaphela project is an ambitious one. If it is successful, it will mean that active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are in all drugs, will be manufactured in South Africa. This is good for two reasons. We will have our own antiretrovirals, malaria and tuberculosis drugs which will cut down costs, but it would also increase the country’s ability to supply increasing domestic and global demands for drugs.
But the project has been beset by teething problems. It was supposed to be up and running by 2015 but it has stalled because the preferred international technology and investment partner pulled out. The new plan, based on a report by Deloitte and Touche is to have the project running by 2017, with new investment and technology partners.
The harsh realities about South Africa that the World Bank dare not speak
- Patrick Bond
A great deal of detail about poverty and inequality in South Africa remains unspoken.
Sometimes silences speak volumes.
In his seminal book The Anti-Politics Machine Stanford University anthropologist James Ferguson criticised the World Bank’s 1980s understanding of Lesotho as a “traditional subsistence peasant society.” Apartheid’s migrant labour system was explicitly ignored by the bank, yet remittances from Basotho workers toiling in mines, factories and farms across the Caledon River accounted for 60% of rural people’s income:
Acknowledging the extent of Lesotho’s long-standing involvement in the modern capitalist economy of South Africa would not provide a convincing justification for the “development” agencies to “introduce” roads, markets and credit.
Using Michel Foucault’s discourse theory, Ferguson showed why some things cannot be named. To do so would violate the bank’s foundational dogma, that the central problems of poverty can be solved by applying market logic. Yet the most important of Lesotho’s market relationships – exploited labour – was what caused so much misery.
Three decades on, not much has changed. Today, the bank’s main South Africa research team reveals a similar ‘Voldemort’ problem.
Like the wicked villain whose name Harry Potter dared not utter, some hard-to-hear facts evaporate into pregnant silences within the bank’s new South African Poverty and Inequality Assessment Discussion Note. Bank staff and consultants are resorting to extreme evasion tactics worthy of Harry, Ron and Hermione.
The bank’s point of view
From the bank’s viewpoint:
South Africa spent more than other countries on its social programs, with this expenditure successfully lifting around 3.6 million individuals out of poverty (based on US$2.5 a day on a purchasing power parity basis) and reducing the Gini coefficient from 0.76 to 0.596 in 2011.
1) “Spent more than other countries”? Of the world’s 40 largest countries, only four - South Korea, China, Mexico and India - had lower social spending than South Africa, measured in 2011 as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
2) “Millions lifted out of poverty?” In fact many millions have been pushed down into poverty since 1994. Unmentioned is poverty that can be traced to neoliberal policies such as the failed 1996-2001 Growth, Employment and Distribution plan co-authored by two bank economists. This made South Africa far more vulnerable to global capitalist crises.
The bank’s South Africa poverty line is $2.5/day, which was R15.75/day (R473/month) in 2011, the date of the last poverty census. In contrast, StatsSA found that food plus survival essentials cost R779/month that year, and the percentage of South Africans below that line was 53%. University of Cape Town economists led by Josh Budlender argue that StatsSA was too conservative and the ratio of poor South Africans is actually 63%.
For a net 3.6 million people, more than 7% of South Africans, to have been “lifted out of poverty” is plausible only if the bank’s much lower R473/month line is used. But by local standards, the number of poor people has soared by around 10 million given the 15 million population rise since 1994.
3) The bank adjusts the Gini Coefficient (measuring income inequality on a 0-to-1 scale) “from 0.76 to 0.596” by including state social spending that benefits poor households. But here another silence screams out. The bank dare not calculate pro-corporate subsidies and other state spending that raise rich people’s effective income through capital gains.
Such wealth accruing through rising corporate share prices is enjoyed mainly by richer people when companies benefit from new, state-built infrastructure in their vicinity. Also ignored by the bank, radically lower corporate taxes mainly benefit the rich in the same way. South Africa’s after-tax profits have been among the world’s highest, according to the International Monetary Fund in 2013.
Indeed the Treasury’s single biggest fiscal policy choice has been to condone “illicit financial flows.” These escape through bogus invoicing and other tax avoidance strategies. The Washington NGO Global Financial Integrity estimates they cost South Africa an annual $21 billion from 2004-13, peaking in 2009 at $29 billion. The bank dare not mention these flows or the resulting capital gains enjoyed by South African shareholders.
4) The Bank was most impressed by government’s
provision of free basic services (mainly water, sanitation, electricity, and refuse removal), and social protection mainly in the form of social grants, primary health care, education (specifically no-fee paying schools), enhancing access to productive assets by the poor (e.g. housing and land), as well as job creation through the Expanded Public Works Program.
But the bank evades vital details, such as how “free basic water” was piloted in Durban in 1999 before becoming national policy in 2001. After a tokenistic 6 free kiloliters (kl) per month, the price of the second block of the water within the tariff increased dramatically. Overall by 2004 the price had doubled. In response, the lowest-income third of households lowered monthly consumption from 22kl to 15kl, while the highest-income third cut back by just 3kl/month, from 35kl to 32kl.
5) Another unmentionable concerns the bank’s largest-ever project loan: $3.75 billion granted in 2010 for the corruption-riddled, oft-delayed Medupi coal-fired power plant. Eskom’s repayment of that loan plus other financing has hiked the price of electricity to poor people by more than 250% since 2007. But neither the loan, the borrower, the project nor the soaring price of electricity are mentioned. Nor are Eskom’s special pricing agreements with BHP Billiton and Anglo that lower electricity prices to a tenth as much as poor households pay.
6) The bank applauds a grant that
now reaches 11.7 million children. Grant payments have risen from 2.9% of GDP and now amount to 3.1%.
But a meagre 0.2% of GDP suggests the amounts provided are tokenistic. The child grant of just R340/month is about a third of today’s StatsSA after-inflation poverty line.
The South Africans who cannot be named
The bank endorses government’s “apparently sound policy” on redistribution because its researchers cannot grapple with the core problem that best explains why South African capitalism causes poverty and inequality: extreme exploitation systems amplified after apartheid by neoliberal policies. The most cited scholarly research about post-apartheid exploitation is by local political economists like Sampie Terreblanche, Hein Marais, William Gumede and Gillian Hart – but the bank dare not reference these books.
To truly tackle poverty and inequality, only one force in society has unequivocally succeeded since 1994. That force is the social activist. Their successes include raising life expectancy from 52 to 62 over the past decade, reversing municipal services privatisation, cutting pollution and raising apartheid wages. But the organisations responsible – such as the Treatment Action Campaign, Anti-Privatisation Forum, South Durban Community Environmental Alliance and trade unions – are also, from the bank’s viewpoint, South Africans who cannot be named.
What Zuma would say if he cast himself as a climate emergency president
- Vishwas Satgar
Post the Cold War and in the age of high finance, the performance of narrow representative democratic politics has spawned three types of presidential politics.
There are the populist presidents. These include Italy’s Sylvio Berlusconi the US’s George Bush and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma. Policy is made on the hoof, is erratic, and there is no moral and intellectual leadership except to allow markets to rule.
Then there is the technocratic ruler guided by the numbers, markets and keen to ensure policy-making is about certainty and the right signals. This is about being a manager of deep globalisation. Bill Clinton, Germany’s Angela Merkel and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki epitomised this.
Finally there is the statesman who is a visionary trying to ensure a home grown master narrative and a strategic class project. They carry a cross section of social forces and invent innovative engagements to shape a globalised political economy. Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Nelson Mandela stand out.
The 2016 State of the Nation Address provides President Zuma with the opportunity to make a clean break with his populist leadership style and take the sort of actions that are likely to make him unpopular. But, that might be a very tall order for Zuma.
What it will take for Zuma the statesman to emerge
Zuma can be a statesman if he embraces and articulates the following three priorities.
Firstly he needs to call for a new mode of governance to tackle the ecological crises facing the world, South Africa and Africa. As the starkest expression of this crisis he actively champions climate emergency governance to ensure systemic adaptation and mitigation.
This means the drought narrative is shifted away from being a national disaster to being part of the “new normal” of climate shocks that requires a new paradigm of state practice, governance and citizenship. He stakes this out as a response to the crises of capitalist civilisation and the need for a just transition to sustain life. Central to this is reaffirming a non-racial approach to these challenges to unify South Africa.
Secondly he affirms a policy shift to climate emergency governance. This means moving policy in the direction of a new metric of sustaining life and a low carbon society. He actively calls for transitional policies that deepen mass initiative. These could include:
climate jobs,
a universal basic income grant set at a high level to enable choice,
integrated public transport,
food sovereignty pathways,
solidarity economies,
participatory budgeting at municipal level,
zero waste,
socially owned renewables,
the lifting on the ceiling of renewables in the national energy mix and calls for the establishment for a socially owned renewables parastatal,
rights of nature legislation,
scaling up cooperative banking in every locale,
a new sustainable water management framework,
a suite of new progressive carbon taxes and the retrofitting of households, government buildings and private corporations with locally manufactured renewable energy technology.
At the same time, he announces an end to fracking and all nuclear deals and sets a deadline to stop producing coal. In addition, he calls on unions to work with government to ensure workers use the climate jobs policy and universal basic income grant to leave behind dirty industries.
He streamlines government by introducing a new democratic planning ministry to work with local governments. It absorbs trade and industry, minerals, energy, environment, water, public transport, local government, agriculture, local development, housing and the finance ministries. And he commits to dismantling provinces through a constitutional amendment to be replaced with three inter-provincial administrations.
He calls for a new policy on politicians' salaries and perks so they are not so excessive. To professionalise the public sector, he calls on the public services commission to improve working conditions for health professionals, teachers, municipal workers and government administrators.
Finally, he announces a revamp of foreign policy which entails re-priorisiting Africa, instead of the BRICS. Africa has and will be hit hardest by climate warming. Yet it does not have the necessary finance, technology and institutional capacity to deal with this. Commitments made by Western countries to Africa at Cop 21 are dismal. Africa is meant to be a zone of climate chaos.
Zuma needs to challenge this by calling for the development of a just transition and climate emergency plan for Africa through the African Union. All foreign engagements would be realigned with this imperative.
Why none of this will happen
All of this will not happen because Jacob Zuma is not a statesmen. It also won’t happen because the ANC-led alliance is married to a fossil fuel and extractivist accumulation path and fixated on a growth-centred version of deep globalisation. This despite the fact that it has not worked and is the opposite of remaking society to fit into ecological constraints to survive.
Finally it will take more climate shocks to wake up the world’s ruling elites and citizenry to understand we have entered unchartered territory in human history.
We are now officially at a 1℃ increase in planetary temperatures since the industrial revolution. And we are rapidly heading towards a 2℃ increase this century. We need to think, act and govern differently if we are to survive and ensure future generations have hope.
Francis Thackeray, Phillip Tobias Chair in Palaeoanthropology, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
