1 December,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 31 of novmbȝ 1595 ... R at the toye to please chaste ladeyes ... xij^s 

In modern English: [1^st December, 1595] ... Received at The Toy to Please Chaste Ladies ... 12 shillings

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

Today, the Admiral's Men returned to A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies, an enigmatic lost play; you can read more about it in the entry for 14 November.

It is the first day of December, and we are now entering the period known as Advent, a period traditionally associated with fasting before Christmas. Although theatre was obviously still permitted, it's likely that a lot of Londoners would have felt guilty about attending during this time.

Perhaps this explains the disastrous box office of this third performance of A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies, which appears not to have pleased many ladies at all, chaste or otherwise.

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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