31 December, 1594 - Tamburlaine

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 30 of desembȝ 1594 ... R at tamberlen ... xxij^s 

In modern English: [31^st] December, 1594 ... Received at Tamburlaine ... 22 shillings.

Illustration of the historical Tamburlaine
from Richard Knolles' General History
of the Turks (1603).

Today, on the last day of the year, the players performed Tamburlaine, Christopher Marlowe's spectacular epic about the bloodthirsty conqueror of Asia. You can read more about this play in the entry for 30th August.

Tamburlaine received a very disappointing box office today when compared with the big audiences that have been showing up for other plays of this Christmas season. The return of the conqueror has not been as big a success as the players might have predicted.

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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