19 September, 1594 - Tasso's Melancholy

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 18 of septmbȝ 1594 ... R at Tasso ... xxvij^s vj^d

In modern English: [19^th] September, 1594 ... Received at Tasso ... 27 shillings and sixpence

Tasso in the Madhouse
by Eugene Delacroix (1839)

Today, the Admiral's Men returned to Tasso's Melancholy, a lost play that dramatized the lovesick insanity of the Italian poet Torquato Tasso; you can read more about it in the entry for 13th August.

The players have waited a fortnight before staging Tasso's Melancholy again. It had done extremely well in its first three performances, but today the box office has suddenly plunged to the ranks of the average. This precipitous drop is surprising and makes one wonder about meteorological explanations...

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

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