To 'Drink' Tobacco...

Thirsty? Drink a cigarette.

(Image from Wikipedia)

In yesterday's post, I noted this odd expression used in Milton's time, when people 'drank' rather than smoked tobacco.

Michael Gilleland, of Laudator Temporis Acti, cites my post in blog entry of his about "Tobacco" and tells us that he had, coincidentally, encountered the same expression the previous day in an Elizabethan poem:

By coincidence, just yesterday I happened on the same expression in a poem by Robert Wisdome included in Norman Ault's anthology of Elizabethan Lyrics (1949; rpt. New York: Capricorn Books, 1960), pp. 19-20:

A Religious Use of Taking Tobacco

The Indian weed witherëd quite,
Green at morn, cut down at night,
Shows thy decay;
All flesh is hay:
Thus think, then drink tobacco.

And when the smoke ascends on high,
Think thou behold'st the vanity
Of worldly stuff,
Gone with a puff:
Thus think, then drink tobacco.

But when the pipe grows foul within,
Think of thy soul defiled with sin.
And that the fire
Doth it require:
Thus think, then drink tobacco.

The ashes that are left behind,
May serve to put thee still in mind
That into dust
Return thou must:
Thus think, then drink tobacco.

An apt memento mori for anyone who smokes religiously. But were Wisdome's words wise? Were they even in earnest? The Oxford Book of Comic Verse, edited by John Gross, includes it (on page 14 of the 1994 edition), ostensibly as a comical poem. Marco Graziosi, who informs us that Wisdome himself met his mortality in 1568, links this poem to the limerick, with which it very nearly shares a rhyme scheme (aabbc; cf. aabba), though Graziosi doesn't state outright that the poem was intended as humor.

The poem gave rise to a popular song whose tune you can hear on The Kitchen Musician Website, courtesy of Sara L. Johnson, who writes a feature "In Tune with the Times: Musical Rambles Through History." Johnson tells us more:

The words to this song can first be traced to a Presbyterian satirist of his day, one George Wither, who published it in his "Abuses stript and whipt," which got him sent to Marshalsea prison. One of his verses is:

Why should we so much despise,
So good and wholesome an exercise,
As, early and late, to meditate?
Thus think, and drink tobacco.

The earthen pipe, so lily white,
Shews that thou art a mortal wight;
Even such - and gone with a small touch:
Thus think, and drink tobacco.

In the times of Elizabeth and James I, the English inhaled and swallowed the smoke, explaining the phrase "to drink tobacco."

Johnson seems unaware that Reverend Wither (1588-1667) must have derived his song from Wisdome (d. 1568), so I wonder if she is correct in her explanation for the origin of the expression "to drink tobacco."

An older source some Elizabethan one might be at hand. On page 158 of the supplement to An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by T. Northcote Toller (1921), we find this entry at the top, which continues the entry from page 157 on drincan (i.e., "to drink"):

(4) to inhale smoke (cf. to drink tobacco) :-- Lege on hátne stán, drinc þurh horn þone réc, Lch. ii. 316, 11.

The line "Lege on hátne stán, drinc þurh horn þone réc" translates into modern English as something like "Fire arises from heat, drink the smoke through a horn," the "horn" being a pipe, I suppose. Experts in Old English should feel themselves invited to correct my translation. I'm guessing that "Lch." refers to the abbreviation "Lchdm." in "abbreviations for the source texts":

Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of early England, edited by O. Cockayne, Master of the Rolls Series, 3 vols. London, 1864-1866. Quoted by volume, page and line.

That's certainly an intriguing title. According to a review in Medical History (1963 January; 7(1): 96), the book "contains almost the entire corpus of scientific writings from the Anglo-Saxon period of English History." Such being the case, I suspect that 'drinking smoke' was a medical remedy of some sort -- though not one using that 'good' medicine, tobacco. Old friends from my history-of-science days might be able to tell us more, but I've lost touch with them all (unless they are among my lurking readers).

For now, at any rate, I can take us no further into the history and prehistory of tobacco drinking...

UPDATE: Edward Pettit, of The Bibliothecary, has graciously corrected my poor translation:

Lege on hátne stán, drinc þurh horn þone réc
Lay on (a) hot stone; drink through (a) horn the smoke.

Much better -- and much more obvious than my effort. So much for the Gypsy's linguistic skills...