Part 13

As I do remember Here dwells a pothecarie whom oft I noted As I past by, whose needie shop is stuft With beggarly accounts of empty boxes. And on the same an Aligarta hangs, Olde ends of packthred, and cakes of roses Are thinly strewed to make up a show. Here as I noted thus with myselfe I thought: Ah, if a man should need a poison now, (Whose present sale is death in Mantua), Here he might buy it. This thought of mine Did but forerune my need; and hereabout he dwells. Being holiday the beggar’s shop is shut. What ho! Apothecary! Come forth I say. Ap. Who calls? What would you, Sir? Rom. Here’s twenty ducats. Give me a dram of some such speeding gere As will despatch the weary taker’s life As suddenly as powder being fired From forth a cannon’s mouth. Ap. Such drugs I have, I must of force confesse, But yet the law is death to those that sell them. Rom. Art though so bare and full of poverty, And dost thou fear to violate the law? The law is not thy friend nor the law’s friend, And therefore make no conscience of the law. Upon thy back hangs ragged misery And starved famine dwelleth in thy cheeks. Ap. My poverty but not my will consents. Rom. I pay thy poverty but not thy will. Ap. Hold, take you this and put it In any liquid thing you will, and it will serve, Had you the lives of twenty men. Rom. Hold, take this gold, worse poison to men’s souls Than this which thou hast given me. Go hie thee hence, Go, buy thee cloathes, and get thee into flesh: Come cordial and not poison, go with me To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.

Shakespeare was a busy man in 1597, and in the years before as well as about that date he was preparing novelties for his theatre. Later he had more leisure, and it is interesting to notice how artistically he fills out his original sketch with only just such details as make the ideas more vivid. In the revised version of this scene, published in 1609, there are no new ideas, but scarcely a line is left untouched. A comparison of title-pages in the two editions is amusing and at the same time instructive. In 1597 it reads: “An Excellent Conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet as it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely.” In 1609 this is toned down to “The most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet as it hath been sundri times publiquely Acted.” The omission of the parenthetic (“with great applause”) is significant. The poet knows he no longer needs meretricious advertisement. The scene as we have it in our modern books is very similar to

Shakespeare’s Revised Version (Third Quarto, 1609).

Rom. I do remember an apothecary And hereabouts he dwells--whom late I noted In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meager were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff’d, and other skins, Of ill-shap’d fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter’d to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said-- And if a man did need a poison now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him. O, this same thought did but fore-run my need; And this same needy man must sell it me. As I remember this should be the house; Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut-- What ho! Apothecary! Ap. Who calls so loud? Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor; Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have A dram of poison; such soon speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins, That the life-weary taker may fall dead; And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath As violently as hasty powder fired Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb. Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law Is death to any he that utters them. Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness, And fear’st to die? famine is in thy cheeks. Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back, The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law; The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this. Ap. My poverty but not my will consents. Rom. I pray thy poverty and not thy will. Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will And drink it off; and if you had the strength Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight. Rom. There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls Doing more murders in this loathsome world Than these poor compounds that thou may’st not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh. Come cordial, and not poison; go with me To Juliet’s grave, for there I must use thee.

(Drawn by Miss K. Righton.)]

Two lines in the accepted version have been the subject of much controversy, sometimes of an acrimonious character among critics. Both sides quote one or other of the early editions in support of their contentions. One of the lines is “Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes.” It is fiercely held that “starveth” in this expression should be “stareth.” And in the famous line “I pray thy poverty and not thy will” ordinary readers naturally think “pay” should be substituted for “pray.” The defenders of the quoted versions contemptuously reply that it is because we are only commonsense people and not poets that we cannot rise to the height of appreciating the meaning of the more recondite phrases that makes us suggest the emendations.

HEBENON.

The “juice of cursed Hebenon,” which according to the Ghost, was the poison chosen by Hamlet’s wicked uncle to kill his father by dropping some of it into his ears during his afternoon nap, has been much discussed by commentators. Authorities generally favour either henbane or ebony (hebenus). Some occasional opinions may be found suggesting other poisons, but they do not carry much weight. Dr. Paris, for example, in “Pharmacologia” proposes the essential oil of tobacco, quoting in support of his opinion the authority of Gerard, who says it was “commonly called the henbane of Peru.” Dr. Bucknill remarks that the poet could not have meant henbane because that herb is not a virulent poison, and would not have had the effect attributed to it. But no dramatist would care to have his fancies subjected to the test of science in this way. Possibly Shakespeare would hardly have cared to justify the introduction of the ghost by strict evidence. Dr. Bucknill decides that as no poison will fit the description the term was used as a generic one for a drug producing “hebetudo animi.” In Beisley’s “Shakespeare’s Garden” it is suggested that hebenon may have been a misprint for eneron, nightshade, which Dyce, a prominent authority, politely dismisses as a “villainous conjecture.”

A plausible German interpretation of hebenon is that it is derived from Eibenbaum, the yew-tree. Eibe was the Saxon name for the yew, and its poisonous properties were recognised from very ancient times. It is probable that some of the quotations which have been credited to ebony may have been really due to the yew. Spenser, for example, writes: “Lay now thy Heben bow aside”; “A speare of Heben wood” and “trees of bitter gall and Heben sad.” These references are more likely to be to the yew than to the ebony: and certainly could not have been applied to the henbane weeds. Gower (1390) has “Of hebanus the sleepy tree.” In Marlowe’s “Jew of Malta” (1592, contemporary with Shakespeare), several deadly things are grouped thus:--

“The blood of Hydra, Lerna’s bane, The juice of Hebon, and Cocytus’ breath.”

There is no tradition of poisonous properties associated with ebony, as there is with both henbane and yew, but in regard to henbane, a remarkable passage has been found in Holland’s translation of Pliny which was published in London just about the time when Shakespeare was writing “Hamlet.” Pliny, dealing with henbane, says (in this translation): “An oile is made of the seed thereof which if it be but dropped into the eares is ynough to trouble the braine.” Shakespeare must have been a voracious reader, he probably got Holland’s book as soon as it came out, and finding this passage, adopted the suggestion. He was no doubt familiar with the word hebon or hebonus, and chose that for his verse, perhaps without caring very much whether it was a correct interpretation of henbane or not. As a matter of fact, in the earlier editions of “Hamlet” the word appears as hebona. In the folios, which came later, hebonon is substituted, no doubt out of consideration for euphony.

It is notable that the player who enacts the murder of the King (Act III., Sc. 2) describes the poison as a

“Mixture rank of midnight weeds collected, With Hecat’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected.”

This of course does not correspond with the suggestion that the juice of hebenon was the product of some one poisonous plant.

XIX

SOME NOTED DRUGS.

Who was the first cultivator of corn? Who first tamed and domesticated the animals whose strength we use, and whom we make our food? Or who first discovered the medicinal herbs which from the earliest times have been our resource against disease? CARDINAL NEWMAN: Sermon on The World’s Benefactors.

The most valuable and original records of the history of drugs are to be found in “Pharmacographia” by F. A. Flückiger of Strasburg and Daniel Hanbury of London (published by Macmillan & Co.). I have as a rule avoided copying details from that work, although I have dealt with no subject without referring to it. In this section, however, the drugs named are of course treated in “Pharmacographia,” and necessarily the facts given must to some extent correspond. But comparison would show that I have only selected subjects which were capable of discussion from a somewhat different point of view from that which guided Messrs. Flückiger and Hanbury.

ALOES.

Dioscorides is the earliest medical writer to mention aloes as a medicine. According to him it should be given in doses of from half a drachm to one drachm as a gentle purge, or of three drachms if its full cathartic effect were required. The drug is not named by Hippocrates nor by Theophrastus.

Celsus describes it as specially valuable for city men and men of letters (urbani et literarum cupidi); he says it is an ingredient in all purgatives, and it is clear from the later Greek and Roman writers how highly this remedy was esteemed. In “Pharmacographia” Hanbury refers to the legend of Alexander the Great visiting the Island of Socotra at the instance of Aristotle particularly on account of the aloes grown there. It is said that Alexander left a colony of Ionians on the island in order to ensure a sufficient supply of the drug. Undoubtedly there were Greek Christians there in Mohammedan times and it is probable that the Arabs invented the Alexandrian origin of them.

The fame of aloes was well maintained by the Arabian physicians, and the old Greek and Roman formulas for aloetic compounds were passed on to the Middle Ages by Mesué of Damascus, together with some new ones. It was one of the drugs recommended to Alfred the Great by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

In 1622 Mindererus published a treatise on a special compound of aloes which he had devised. Raymond Minderer was the most famous physician of his time. He lived at Augsburg, and was the appointed medical adviser to the Duke of Bavaria and the great house of the Fuggers, the Rothschilds of the period. Minderer’s book was entitled “Aloedarium,” and it described in loving detail each of the nine ingredients of what is supposed to have been the lineal ancestor of our modern compound rhubarb pill. The components were:--

Aloes 3 ounces, Marum (herb mastic), and Saffron, of each 3 scruples, Agaric, Costus, and Myrrh, of each 3 half-drachms, Ammoniacum, 3 drachms, Rhubarb, 3 two-drachms (ʒvi), and Lign Aloes, 3 half-scruples. These drugs were each separately macerated in appropriate liquids, the aloes in rose water, the myrrh in rue vinegar, and so forth. Mindererus recommended these pills not so much as a purgative, but as a general tonic, especially useful to strong, fair, well-fed persons.

Following Minderer’s book, and indeed slavishly copying it, came a treatise by Dr. William Marcquis of Antwerp, entitled “Aloe Morbifuga.” The only notable feature of this work is that its author is clear about the importance of that part of the aloes which is soluble in water as the constituent of the drug in which the purgative properties reside. He was, in fact, the originator of our aqueous extract of aloes.

CASTOR OIL.

The supposed identity of the Palma Christi tree, from the seeds of which castor oil is obtained, with the Hebrew “kikaion” is mentioned in the note on Jonah’s “gourd” in the section “Pharmacy in the Bible.” It is not doubtful that the plant was the same as the “kiki” of Herodotus, and the “kiki” or “kroton” of Dioscorides. Avicenna quotes a reference to the seeds from Dioscorides, from which, he says, is pressed the oil of kiki “which is the oil of Alkeroa.” Other Arab authors use the term “al-keroa” for the Greek “kiki.” A frequent Latin name for the Palma Christi was “kikinum,” or “cicinum.”

The earliest allusion to the oil is found in Herodotus (“Hist. Euterpe,” sec. 94), where we read “The inhabitants of the marshy grounds in Egypt make use of an oil which they term the ‘kiki,’ expressed from the Sillicyprian plant. In Greece this plant springs spontaneously without any cultivation; but the Egyptians sow it on the banks of the river and the canals; it there produces fruit in great abundance, but of a very strong odour. When gathered they obtain from it, either by friction or pressure, an unctuous liquid which diffuses an offensive smell, but for burning it is equal in quality to the oil of olives.”