No 3684 Set by Watson Weeks

The discovery of an old clay pipe in Warwickshire had led to speculation that Shakespeare may have experimented with cannabis and even Ecstasy. We asked for extracts of an early draft of a well-known play written by the Bard.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Most excellent. However, I was pleased to discover four literary giants among you, who can have £20 each; the vouchers go to Will Bellenger.

Macbeth: Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow

Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow

Creeps in this pretty peace from

Tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow

And all our fools have lit up

Our yesterdays from day to day

The way to dusty-fusty. Out, out, out

Brief smoke standing in the shadows

Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow

One man went tomorrow went tomorrow

Went tomorrow a meadow in Birnam

Is this a reefer I see before me

And all our candles are like a poor player

That struts his stuff upon a walking stage

And then tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow

You live your life like a candle in the wind

It is a tell-tale told by a fury. Ha!

Ha ha! Full of sound and idiot, signifying

Something or other in the sky with

Diamonds.

Will Bellenger

Henry V: Once more on to the beach, old friends, once more

And pass the joint round with our English cred.

Peace. Peace. There's nothing. So, become a man

And model silliness; hum a riff or three.

Make peace not war. Tickle your eyes

And imitate the wriggles of a spider.

Relax the sinews. Circulate the weed.

This, guys, is nature. And good-flavoured stuff.

Then lend a guy a tenner till he's wrecked.

Let it be. There are pot-heads, and they're spread

Like a grass love-in . . . .

. . . Wey-hey you smokies,

Whose joints were rolled in England, show us here

The rustle of your Rizlas. Great skunk, hey -

This stuff was worth the growing. Pass it round.

For there is none of you so high, so free

That can't be even more brilliant in his eyes.

I see you puff the magic dragon, lips

Loving the lovely joint. The weed's alight.

Give us your mantra, and float like a whale.

Cry: "Pot for people; roll up; and inhale."

(Speaking time: two hours)

D A Prince

Hamlet: Inhale or not inhale: that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or take arms against a sea of troubles

And by inhaling end them? To smoke, to dream;

No more; and by a dream to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To smoke, to dream;

To dream; perchance the horrors, there's the rub;

For in that dream of smoke nightmares may come

When we have shuffled off sobriety

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of Cannabine.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a mere weed? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of tripping into hell

Doth make us rather bear the ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Soft you now! The fair Ophelia!

Nymph, have a puff and let us dream together!

T Griffiths

Macbeth: Is this a pipe here which I see before me?

The stem towards my hand. Come, let me clutch thee,

I smoke thee not, and yet I see thee still,

How I long to smoke thee, thus to rest

My bosom from this dreadful curse, this wish

To wallow in a bloodbath, and pursue

My destiny into the path of tragedy,

And thus to end up dead. But over there,

Look, fairies, dancing at the bottom of the garden,

And I shall dance as well, feet twitching

In slippers like a fish caught in a boot.

Hey ho, nonnie no, sweet lovers love the swing.

But no, it is a dagger, die, die, die, dead,

And such an instrument I was to use

Before I lost my thread. I see thee still,

Dancing in the light, with gouts of blood

Which was not so before, before I saw thee still.

Is this a pipe here which I smoke before me?

No, I smoke it not, as witchcraft celebrates

Puff Hecate's offerings, the shrivelled weed

Doth bubble bubble toil and trouble.

It is a bloody business which I smoke,

Come Duncan to me, share my pipe of peace.

Katie Mallett

No 3687 Set by John Crick

A reworking of an old favourite. "As a contribution to natural history the work is negligible," said a 1908 Times review of The Wind in the Willows. We would like you to pick a book written in the past decade and subject it to similar treatment (for example, Martin Amis's Experience as reviewed by a dentist). Max 200 words and in by 5 July.

E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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