11 December, 1596 - The Seven Days of the Week

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 12 of desembȝ  1596 ... R at the vij dayes ... ix^s    

In modern English: [11^th] December, 1596 ... Received at The Seven Days ... 9 shillings

Today, the Admiral's Men revived their enigmatic lost play The Seven Days of the Week, about which we know nothing beyond its title. Perhaps it was an anthology of seven short plays, or perhaps it was about the creation of the world. You can read more about it in the entry for 3rd June, 1595.

19th-century Italian bracelet illustrating each of the seven days of
the week with a portrait of the deity associated with it.
From the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 

The players have waited a fortnight to return The Seven Days of the Week, one of the few plays they are still regularly performing. Its box office today is dreadful. These are lean times for the Admiral's Men. 

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because 12 December was a Sunday in 1596 and the players did not perform. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on the 13th for a week in which the Admiral's Men will retry some of their new plays.

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)

Comments?

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