14 November, 1595 - A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 14 of novmbȝ 1595 ... ne ... R at a toye to please my ladey ... lj^s 

In modern English: 14^th November, 1595 ... New ... Received at A Toy to Please My Lady ... 51 shillings

Two Women at a Window by Murillo (1655-60)

Today, the Admiral's Men performed a new play. It is now lost, which is a shame because its title, A Toy to Please My Lady, is intriguing. In future entries, Henslowe will refer to it instead as A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies; it's not clear whether he is correcting an earlier mistake or whether the players changed the title, perhaps to avoid salacious connotations.

One could certainly suspect a double entendre in this title, since "toy" could refer to male naughty bits in Elizabethan times. However, it more commonly refers to something frivolous or trivial, and one interpretation of the title might thus be "a bit of nonsense for the women in the audience". If so, its self-deprecation is reminiscent of Shakespeare's titles Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It.

Sadly, that is as much information as can be gleaned from today's entry. But whatever the play's subject, it attracted an audience that would be considered large on an ordinary day, but rather disappointing for a premiere. Perhaps the menfolk took the advice of the title and stayed away...

FURTHER READING

A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies information

• Martin Wiggins, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 2013), entry 1018.

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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