It took months of persuading, but my portrait hangs in the potions classroom. Just to give advice to my successor, of course. Anyway, that is where I dictate this from.
As soon as I heard that some of my fellow Slytherins were discussing Shakespeare, how could I not join in? I have read all of his plays and most of his sonnets, so I felt it was imperative that I share my thoughts with those of you who have more than one brain cell.
There are a handful of plays that include potions. To name a few; Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth.
Let's start with Macbeth. And we'll have none of this "The Scottish Play" nonsense; that's just for superstitious fools. But that's by the by. In a scene from Macbeth, a witch's brew is concocted to conjure the souls of the dead. Now, if you tell me that this isn't an appropriate time to bring this up you might as well just walk away now. It's October, for Merlin's sake! Anyway, along with magical animal parts and cursed objects thrown into the cauldron, a couple of known plant ingredients are included as well - poison hemlock and yew.
The exact wording of the Witch's Brew recipe written in Shakespeare's Macbeth is: "Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble." Now, I'm sure we can find most of those in the store cupboard.
The love potion used by the fairy Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream is a rather interesting one. It's made from a flower called ‘love-in-idleness', otherwise known as the wild pansy. Now, for those dunderheads who are reading this, the potion is created when Cupid shoots an arrow at Queen Elizabeth 1 but missed and instead hits the flower. The petals turn from white to purple, and the flower's juice becomes a love potion.
It works similar to Amortentia in that it can create the illusion of attraction. What I find curious about this particular potion, however, is that it is placed directly onto the target's eyes. Therefore, you have to ensure the individual is in a deep sleep before you administer it. Whilst it is given to Lysander, and later Demetrius, to cause chaos in the forest, Titania is also targeted. This causes her to fall in love with a man with the head of a donkey. Some fantastic creative writing I must say!
Now, let's discuss Hamlet. This one is rather interesting; it certainly piqued my interest anyway. But, then again, I do have a working knowledge of potions. Hamlet's father was poisoned by a substance poured into his ear while he slept. Whilst it is possible to brew a dangerous poison, I have yet to come across a method where the potion will work if anything other than ingested. The thing about potions is that they need to interact with stomach acid to work effectively.
Finally, we come to Romeo and Juliet. Now, if you don't know this then you've got to be the biggest bunch of dunderheads that I have ever come across. I believe the Muggles have made several versions of the film, so you don't even have to read the play to understand the language. Although I think people are incredibly idiotic if they don't even try to get their heads around it. It's not that difficult to understand if you think about it.
The entire plot was incredibly nauseating; I felt like I wanted to vomit. But I'm glad I persisted as the only aspect of interest to me was when Juliet used a drug to fake her own death. If you have an ounce of common sense, you will know that the Draught of Living Death can make you appear dead without causing you harm; in the right dose that is. When Romeo arrived, he thought Juliet was dead, so took some poison to join her. When she woke, she discovered he was dead and stabbed herself with his dagger.
As I said, that was the only interesting part of the play for me; I just had to suffer through garbage before then.
As you can see, a lot of potions are used throughout Shakespeare's plays. I could go on but I need to focus on the dramatics of the day. It's quite nice not having to deal with dunderheads anymore; no one adding the wrong ingredients or blowing things up.
I guess I'll be going now,
Snape