Perchance to dream?

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
--The Tempest, act iii, scene 2

Those of us who have struggled through some of Shakespeare's plays -- notably The Tempest -- have sometimes wondered to ourselves: What was that dude smoking?

We may soon have an answer.

Paleontologists are about to descend on Stratford-on-Avon and run DNA tests on the Bard's bones. While they're at it, they plan to check out rumors that our boy William was an enthusiastic pot smoker -- rumors based on the discovery of a couple dozen odd pipes in his garden, together with the fact that marijuana was cultivated in England during his years on earth. Investigators will have to brave the curse that Shakespeare placed on his tomb, a curse on anyone who disturbed the remnants of his mortal coil.

Meanwhile, four hundred years after Shakespeare's death, here in our soberly Scandinavian state of Washington, an unusual coalition of public figures yesterday filed a statewide initiative that would legalize and regulate (through the Liquor Control Board) the sale and use of marijuana. The initiative is being supported by the Seattle City Attorney, by a former U.S. Attorney, by a former president of the Washington Bar, and by travel writer Rick Steves.

If voters aren't sufficiently convinced by the policy arguments that are being offered for legalization, they may at least conclude that if toking up was good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for them. Some of the most beautiful and meaningful writing in the English tongue came, after all, from the pen of a guy who may have been flying high as a kite.

Flout 'em and scout 'em
And scout 'em and flout 'em
Thought is free.
--The Tempest, act iii, scene 2

That's what I say. See what I mean? Hey, wait a minute? What?

Thou deboshed fish thou.
--The Tempest, act iii, scene 2.

Huh? What da? What's that dude smokin', anyway?