31 May, 1597 - A Humorous Day's Mirth

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

Henslowe writes: 31 | tt at the vmers... 03 | 04

In modern English: 31^st [May, 1597] ... total at The Humours ... £3 and 4 shillings [i.e. 64 shillings]

Today, the Admiral's Men revived their 

A classic image of a
melancholic, from
Robert Burton's Anatomy
of Melancholy (1622)

Comedy of Humours, which is almost certainly another name for George Chapman's A Humorous Day's Mirth. You can read more about this eccentric comedy in the entry for 11 May. 

This is amazing! It's the fourth performance of A Humorous Day's Mirth and the box office is continuing to rise instead of fall! This is almost unheard of at the Rose and shows that the play has received tremendous word of mouth, attracting huge crowds to the Bankside. We should remember John Chamberlain's description of his trip to see the play: "I was drawn along to it by the common applauses". 

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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