This Just In: First Performance of Hamlet

Four hundred and one years ago today, the first dateable performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet—aboard the sailing vessel Red Dragon, anchored off Sierra Leone, as recorded in the log of its captain, William Keeling:

1607 September 5th
I sent the interpreter according to his desire abord the Hector whear he brooke fast and after came abord me wher we gae the tragedie of Hamlett.

...as reprinted in Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor eds. Arden Third Series Hamlet 53 (2006). A text of the play had been entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1602; date of first London production unknown, maybe 1601.

Well, God dild you. They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know we are but know not what we may be. God be at your table.

—Hamlet IV, v (the mad Ophelia shortly before her suicide).