In einer eMail vom 13.11.2006 15:13:32 Westeurop=E4ische Normalzeit schreibt [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> Early adopter, too, if he's dressed for the period. Or maybe he's not > smoking tobacco. > I looked up Steen in the Wikipedia, and his dates are given as 1626 - 1679. That post-dates Sir Walter Raleigh's trips to Virginia by a generation. So the cittern player was most probably smoking the "Indian weed". Clay tobacco pipes play quite a prominent part in the Dutch paintings of the 17th century. They were used in still-lifes, alog with flowers and fruit, to symbolise transience - a long-stemmed clay pipe is very easily broken, and you can't smoke it very often before it gets bitter! There's an English folksong I learned recently that uses the pipe and smoking as a sort of memento mori. The "Indian weed" - green at morn, cut down by e'en; the lovely, white pipe, broken at a touch; foul within, requiring the purging fire; the smoke that dissipates like human life. The last line of each verse is "Think on this when you smoke tobacco!" I don't think the EU Ministers of Health wrote the song. It has more to do with the health of the soul than of the body. By the way, the Wikipedia entry for Jan Steen shows a self-portrait of him as a lutenist. Cheers, John D. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
