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.[1]