Eastward Hoe

Title page of Eastward Hoe

Eastward Hoe or Eastward Ho! is an early Jacobean-era stage play written by George Chapman, Ben Jonson and John Marston. The play was first performed at the Blackfriars Theatre by a company of boy actors known as the Children of the Queen's Revels in early August 1605,[1] and it was printed in September the same year.[2]

Eastward Ho! is a citizen or city comedy about Touchstone, a London goldsmith, and his two apprentices, Quicksilver and Golding. The play is highly satirical about social customs in early modern London, and its anti-Scottish satire resulted in a notorious scandal in which King James was offended and the play's authors were imprisoned. Eastward Ho! also references, even parodies, popular plays performed by adult companies such as The Spanish Tragedy, Tamburlaine and Hamlet.[3] The play's title alludes to Westward Ho! by Thomas Dekker and John Webster who also wrote Northward Ho! in response that year.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Logan and Smith, p. 146.
  4. ^ Gossett, Suzanne; Kay, K. David (2012). The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 531–534. ISBN 9780521782463.