21 May, 1595 - Tamburlaine

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 21 of maye 1595 ... R at j pt of tamberlen ... xxiij^s 

In modern English: 21^st May, 1595 ... Received at First Part of Tamburlaine ... 22 shillings.

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

Today, the players performed the first part of 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.

This is the first time the company has revived Tamburlaine since their lengthy break for Lent. It continues to disappoint though - for all its iconic status in Elizabethan England, not many people are still interested in seeing it by 1595.

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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