That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,
And yet are on’t?”——Macbeth.
There is no reason to doubt that the ancients were, in a manner, acquainted with some of the narcotics4 known to us, although they did not indulge in them as stimulants5 or luxuries. The antiquarian, it is true, has failed to unearth6 the tobacco-box of Claudius, or the pipe of Nero—however much the latter may have been given to smoke. And no one has as yet discovered a snuff-box bearing the initials of Marc Antony, whence the taper7 fingers of Egypt’s queen drew a pinch of Princess’ Mixture or Taddy’s Violet, gazing with loving eyes on Antony the while. In those remote times the hemp8 and the poppy were not unknown; and there is reason for believing that in Egypt the former was used as a potion for soothing9 and dispelling10 care.
Herodotus informs us that the Scythians cultivated hemp, and converted it into linen11 cloth, resembling that made from flax; and he adds also, that11 “when, therefore, the Scythians have taken some seed of this hemp, they creep under the cloths, and then put the seed on the red hot stones; but this being put on smokes, and produces such a steam, that no Grecian vapour-bath would surpass it. The Scythians, transported with the vapour, shout aloud.”3 The same author also states that the Massaget?, dwelling12 on an island of the Araxes, have discovered “trees that produce fruit of a peculiar13 kind, which the inhabitants, when they meet together in companies, and have lit a fire, throw on the fire as they sit round in a circle; and that by inhaling14 the fumes15 of the burning fruit that has been thrown on, they become intoxicated16 by the odour, just as the Greeks do by wine, and that the more fruit is thrown on, the more intoxicated they become, until they rise up to dance, and betake themselves to singing.”4
Homer also makes Helen administer to Telemachus, in the house of Menelaus, a potion prepared from nepenthes, which made him forget his sorrows.
Bright Helen mix’d a mirth-inspiring bowl;
To clear the cloudy front of wrinkled care,
Though on the blazing pile his parent lay,
Or a loved brother groan’d his life away,
Or darling son, oppress’d by ruffian force,
The man entranced would view the deathful scene.
These drugs, so friendly to the joys of life,
Bright Helen learn’d from Thone’s imperial wife,
With various simples clothes the fatten’d soil.
From P?on sprung, their patron-god imparts
To all the Pharian race his healing arts.”
12
Diodorus Siculus states that the Egyptians laid much stress on the circumstance that the plant used by Helen had been given her by a woman of Egyptian Thebes, whence they argued that Homer must have lived amongst them, since the women of Thebes were celebrated32 for possessing a secret whereby they could dissipate anger or melancholy33. This secret is supposed to have been a knowledge of the narcotic3 properties of hemp. The plant was known to the Romans, and largely used by them in the time of Pliny for the manufacture of cordage, and there is scarce a doubt that they were acquainted with its other properties. Galen refers to the intoxicating34 power of hemp, for he relates that in his time it was customary to give hemp-seed to the guests at banquets as a promoter of hilarity35 and enjoyment36. Slow poisons and secret poisoning was an art with which the Romans were not at all unfamiliar37. What the medium was through which they committed these criminal acts, can only be conjectured38 from the scanty39 information remaining. Hemp, or opium40, or both, may have had some share in the work, since the poppy was sacred to Somnus, and known to possess narcotic properties.
The latter plant is one of the earliest described. Homer speaks of the poppy growing in gardens, and it was employed by Hippocrates, the father of physic, who even particularizes two kinds, the black and the white, and used the extract of opium so extensively, as to be condemned41 by his contemporary Diagoras. Dioscorides and Pliny also make mention of it; and from their time, it has been so commonly used, as to be incorporated in all the materia medicas of subsequent medical writers.
Plutarch tells us that a poison was administered to Aratus of Sicyon, not speedy and violent, but of13 that kind which at first occasions a slow heat in the body, with a slight cough, and then gradually brings on consumption and a weakness of intellect. One time when Aratus spat42 up blood, he said, “This is the effect of royal friendship.” And Quintilian, in his Declamations, speaks of this poison in such a manner as proves that it must then have been well known.
The infamous43 acts of Locusta are noticed by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Juvenal. This poisoner seems to have been a type of such a character as the traditions of a later age embodied44 in the person and under the name of Lucretia Borgia.
Agrippina, being desirous of getting rid of Claudius, but not daring to despatch45 him suddenly, and yet wishing not to leave him time sufficient to make new regulations concerning the succession to the throne, made choice of a poison which should deprive him of his reason and gradually consume him. This she caused to be prepared by an expert poisoner, named Locusta, who had been condemned to death for her infamous actions, but saved that she might be employed as a state engine. The poison was given to the emperor in a dish of mushrooms, but as, on account of his irregular manner of living, it did not produce the desired effect, it was assisted by some of a stronger nature. We are also further told that this Locusta prepared the drug wherewith Nero despatched Britannicus, the son of Messalina, whom his father, Claudius, wished to succeed him on the throne. As this poison occasioned only a dysentery, and was too slow in its operation, the emperor compelled Locusta, by blows, and by threatening her with death, to prepare in his presence one more powerful. It was first tried on a kid, but as the animal did not die till the end of five hours, she boiled it a little longer, until it14 instantaneously killed a pig to which it had been given, and this poison despatched Britannicus as soon as he had tasted it. For this service the emperor pardoned Locusta, rewarded her liberally, and gave her pupils, whom she was to instruct in her art, in order that it might not be lost.
The pupils of Locusta have not left us, however, the secret which their mistress confided46 to them. The demand made of the apothecary47 in “Romeo and Juliet” would have suited Nero’s case, in the latter instance.
“Let me have
A dram of poison; such soon speeding geer
That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s mouth.”
What connection the narcotic hemp had with the famous oracle50 of Delphi is not altogether certain, but it has been supposed, and such supposition contains nothing of heresy51 in these days, that the ravings of the Pythia were the consequences of a good dose of haschish, or bang. The non-classical readers will allow us to inform them, and the classical permit us to remind them, that the oracle at Delphi was the most celebrated in all Greece. That it was related of old, that a certain shepherd, tending his flocks on Mount Parnassus, observed, that the steam issuing from a hole in the rock seemed to inspire his goats, and cause them to frisk about in a marvellous manner. That this same shepherd was tempted52 to peep into the hole himself, and the fumes rising therefrom filled him with such ecstacy, that he gave vent53 to wild and extravagant54 expressions, which were regarded as prophetical. This circumstance becoming known, the place was revered55, and thereon a temple was15 afterwards erected56 to Apollo, and a priestess appointed to deliver the oracles58. This priestess of Apollo, Pythia, was seated over the miraculous59 cavity upon a tripod, or three-legged stool, and the fumes arising were supposed to fill her with inspiration, and she delivered, in bad verses, the oracles of the deity60. During the inspiration, her eyes sparkled, her hair stood erect57, and a shivering ran over the whole body. Under the convulsions thus produced, with loud howlings and cries, she delivered the messages, which were carefully noted62 down by an attendant priest. Plutarch states, that one of the priestesses was thrown into such an excessive fury, that not only those who came to consult the oracle, but the priests in attendance, were so terrified, that they forsook63 her and fled; and that the fit was so violent, that she continued several days in agony, and finally died. It has been believed that these fumes, instead of proceeding64 from the earth, were produced by the burning of some narcotic herb, probably hemp. Who shall decide?
In later times “bang” is referred to in the “Arabian Nights.” In one of the tales, two ladies are in conversation, and one enquires65 of the other, “If the queen was not much in the wrong not to love so amiable66 a prince?” To which the other replied, “Certainly, I know not why she goes out every night and leaves him alone. Is it possible that he does not perceive it?” “Alas!” says the first, “how would you have him to perceive it? She mixes every evening with his drink the juice of a certain herb, which makes him sleep so sound all night, that she has time to go where she pleases, and as day begins to appear, she comes to him again, and awakes him by the smell of something she puts under his nose.”
The Caliph Haroun al Raschid indulged too in “bang,” and although somewhere we have seen16 this word rendered “henbane,” we still adhere to the “bang” of the text, and think the evidence is in favour of the Indian hemp. Further accounts of the early history of this plant we will not however forestal, as it will occur more appropriately when we come to speak of it in particular. Henbane has been long enough known; but it has always had the misfortune either of a positive bad name, or no one would speak much in its favour, and therefore it has never risen in the world.
The lettuce67, which has not been known to us three hundred years, was also known to the ancients, and its narcotic properties recognized. Dioscorides writes of it, and so also Theophrastus. It is referred to by Galen, and, if we mistake not, spoken of by Pliny. It was certainly wild, in some of its species, on the hills of Greece, and was cultivated for the tables of the salad-loving Greeks and Romans. It had been better that some of them had spent more of their time in eating lettuce salads, and by that means had less time to spare for other occupations of a far more reprehensible68 kind.
The “nepenthes” of Homer has already been shown to have found a representative in hemp. There have also been claims made for considering it as the crocus, or the stigmas69 of that flower known to us as saffron. Pliny states that it has the power of allaying70 the fumes of wine, and preventing drunkenness; and it was taken in drink by great winebibbers, to enable them to drink largely without intoxication71. Its properties are of a peculiar character, causing, in large doses, fits of immoderate laughter. The evidence in favour of this being the true “nepenthes” is, however, we consider very incomplete, and not so satisfactory, by any means, as that given on behalf of the Indian hemp.
17
When the Roman soldiers retreated from the Parthians, under the command of Antony, Plutarch narrates72 of them that they suffered great distress73 for want of provisions, and were urged to eat unknown plants. Among others, they met with a herb that was mortal; he that had eaten of it lost his memory and his senses, and employed himself wholly in turning about all the stones he could find, and, after vomiting74 up bile, fell down dead. Attempts to unravel75 the mysteries of this plant have ended, in some cases at least, in referring it to the belladonna, a plant common enough in these our days, and known to possess poisonous properties of a narcotico-acrid character.
An analogous76 circumstance occurred in the retreat of the Ten Thousand, as related by Xenophon. Near Trebizond were a number of beehives, and as many of the soldiers as ate of the honeycombs became senseless, and were seized with vomiting and diarrh?a, and not one of them could stand erect. Those who had swallowed but little looked very like drunken men, those who ate much were like madmen, and some lay as if dying; and thus they lay in such numbers, as on a field of battle after a defeat. And the consternation77 was great; yet no one was found to have died; all recovered their senses about the same hour on the following day; and on the third or fourth day thereafter, they rose up as if they had suffered from the drinking of poison.
This poisonous property of the honey is said to be derived78 by the bees from the flowers of a species of rhododendron (Azalea pontica), all of which possess narcotic properties.
Supposing that blind old Homer—if ever there was an old Homer, and if blind, no matter—knew the secret of Egyptian Thebes, and the power of18 the narcotic hemp, and yet never smoked a hubble-bubble, it is of little consequence, except to the Society of Antiquaries, and certainly makes no difference to Homer now. Although Diagoras condemned Hippocrates for giving too much opium to his patients, we are not informed whether it was administered in the shape of “Tinctura opii,” or “Confectio opii,” or “Extractum opii,” or “Godfrey’s cordial,” or “Paregoric elixir79.” The discovery would not lengthen80 our own lives, and therefore we do not repine. We think that we have some consolation81 left, in that we are wiser than Homer or Hippocrates in respect of that particular vanity, called “shag tobacco,” which, we venture to suggest, neither of those venerable sages61 ever indulged in during the period of their natural lives. And although Herodotus found the Scythians using, in a strange manner, the tops of the hemp plant, he never got so far as Kamtschatka, and therefore never saw a man getting drunk upon a toadstool. If he had ever seen it, he had never slept till he had told it to that posterity82 which he has left us to enlighten.
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1
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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2
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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3
narcotic
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| n.麻醉药，镇静剂；adj.麻醉的，催眠的 | |
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4
narcotics
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| n.麻醉药( narcotic的名词复数 )；毒品；毒 | |
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5
stimulants
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| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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6
unearth
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| v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出 | |
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7
taper
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| n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小 | |
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8
hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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9
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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10
dispelling
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的现在分词 ) | |
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11
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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12
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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13
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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14
inhaling
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| v.吸入( inhale的现在分词 ) | |
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15
fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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16
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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17
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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18
assuage
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| v.缓和，减轻，镇定 | |
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19
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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20
sluices
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| n.水闸( sluice的名词复数 )；（用水闸控制的）水；有闸人工水道；漂洗处v.冲洗( sluice的第三人称单数 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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21
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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22
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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23
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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24
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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25
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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26
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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27
prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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28
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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29
venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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30
taints
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| n.变质( taint的名词复数 )；污染；玷污；丑陋或腐败的迹象v.使变质( taint的第三人称单数 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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31
odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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32
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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33
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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34
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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35
hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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36
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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37
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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38
conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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40
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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41
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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42
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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43
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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44
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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45
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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46
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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47
apothecary
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| n.药剂师 | |
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48
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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49
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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50
oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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51
heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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52
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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53
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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54
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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55
revered
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| v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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57
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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58
oracles
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| 神示所( oracle的名词复数 )； 神谕； 圣贤； 哲人 | |
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59
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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60
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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61
sages
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| n.圣人( sage的名词复数 )；智者；哲人；鼠尾草（可用作调料） | |
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62
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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63
forsook
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| forsake的过去式 | |
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64
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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65
enquires
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| 打听( enquire的第三人称单数 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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66
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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67
lettuce
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| n.莴苣；生菜 | |
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68
reprehensible
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| adj.该受责备的 | |
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69
stigmas
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| n.耻辱的标记，瑕疵( stigma的名词复数 ) | |
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70
allaying
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| v.减轻，缓和( allay的现在分词 ) | |
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71
intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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narrates
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| v.故事( narrate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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73
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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vomiting
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| 吐 | |
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unravel
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| v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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elixir
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| n.长生不老药，万能药 | |
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80
lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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