Eastward Hoe

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Title page Eastward Hoe

Eastward Hoe or Eastward Ho! is an early Jacobean-era stage play written by George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston in 1605. Written in response to Westward Ho!, an earlier satire by Thomas Dekker and John Webster. Eastward Ho! is a citizen or city comedy which details the adventures of Touchstone, a London goldsmith, and his two apprentices, Golding and Quicksilver. The play was premiered at the Blackfriars Theatre by a company of boy actors known as the Children of the Queen's Revels. Later in 1605, Dekker and Webster responded with Northward Ho! which shifts the setting northerly from London to Ware.[1] Eastward Ho! caused quite a scandal when the anti-Scottish satire in the play offended the new King James I of England and resulted the authors' imprisonment in the old Marshalsea.[2] Their arrest was known as one of the famous dramatic scandals of its era.

Characters

  • Touchstone, a goldsmith of Cheapside
  • Mistress Touchstone, his wife, a gentlewoman
  • Gertude, his elder daughter
  • Mildred, his younger daughter
  • Francis Quicksilver, his prodigal apprentice
  • Golding, his dutiful apprentice
  • Sindefy, Quicksilver's lover, later employed as Gertrude's maid
  • Sir Petronel Flash, a 'thirty pound' knight, engaged to Gertrude
  • Captain Seagull, a ship's captain employed by Petronel to Virginia
  • Spendall and Scapethrift, adventurers with Captain Seagull
  • Drawer, of the Blue Tavern in Billingsgate
  • Security, an elderly usurer; bawd to Quicksilver
  • Winifred, Security's young wife
  • Bramble, a lawyer
  • Scrivener
  • Poldavy, a tailor
  • Bettrice, a lady's maid
  • Mistress Fond and Mistress Gazer, city women
  • Coachman, to Gertrude
  • Hamlet, footman to Gertrude
  • Potkin, a tankard bearer
  • First Gentleman and Second Gentleman, at the Isle of Dogs
  • Wolf, the keeper of the Counter, a prison
  • Slitgut, a butcher's apprentice
  • Holdfast, a prison guard
  • Friend, of the prisoners
  • First Prisoner, Second Prisoner (Toby), Page, Messenger, Constable, and Officers[3]

Synopsis

Act 1

William Touchstone, a London goldsmith, chastises his apprentice Francis “Frank” Quicksilver for his prodigality, exorbitant lending, and ambitious social climbing. Concerned with his household’s honest reputation, Touchstone didactically warns Quicksilver against ill-gotten money and consorting with untrustworthy flatterers and gamblers, but Quicksilver dismisses his warnings, saying that he keeps company with “gentlemen of good phrase, perfect language, passingly behaved” (1.1.50-1).[3] Contrastingly, Touchstone’s second apprentice, Golding, is industrious and temperate. Touchstone expresses his great admiration for Golding’s uprightness and hopes that Golding will marry Mildred, his mild and modest daughter.

Meanwhile, his second daughter, Gertrude is engaged to the fraudulent Sir Petronel Flash, a knight who possesses a title, but questionable money. Unlike her sister, Gertrude is a vain and lascivious, preoccupied with opulent fashion and advancing her social status by marrying Petronel. Touchstone’s wife, Mistress Touchstone, approves of Gertrude and Petronel’s marriage. She bustles around Gertrude with wedding preparations, scolding her husband for his misgivings. After reluctantly granting Gertude’s inheritance, Touchstone heartily gives Golding permission to marry Mildred. Touchstone champions the engaged couple for their modesty, thriftiness, and virtue. Anticipating the success of Mildred’s virtuous match, he says, “This match shall on, for I intend to prove / which thrives the best, the mean or the lofty love” (1.2.141-2).[3]

Act 2

The morning after Gertude and Petronel’s costly wedding, Touchstone finds Quicksilver shamefully drunk. Touchstone breaks Quicksilvers’s apprenticeship contract and throws him out of the house for his shameful gluttony and drunkenness. Unperturbed, Quicksilver mocks Touchstone’s favorite phrase, “Work upon that now!” (2.1.116)[3] -- which could mean “improve your faults” or “examine yourself” -- and proclaims he shall spend his new freedom going “eastward ho!” (2.1.100-2).[3] Touchstone promotes his new son-in-law Golding to a member of the guild.  

Quicksilver meets with Security, an old usurer and pander who is married to a young woman named Winifred, and Quicksilver’s lover, Sindefy. Quicksilver happily reports his newfound freedom from apprenticeship and devises how he will climb the social ladder and get wealthy without inconvenience or labor. He schemes with Security how they can convince Petronel to fund a voyage to Virginia through deceiving Gertrude. Petronel arrives and proclaims a restless desire to venture out of London. He confesses that Gertrude took a coach to see his castle, but that “all the castles I have are built with air” (2.3.7).[3] Petronel restlessly desires to leave London, especially since he cannot tolerate Gertrude or her expensive tastes. Quicksilver convinces Petronel of his unfortunate marriage and tells him to persuade Gertrude into signing away her inheritance to fund their voyage. Sindefy will work as Gertrude’s new maid and likewise encourage Gertrude to agree with the plan. During the scheming, Security and Petronel become friends and Security declares that Petronel will be the godfather of his first child. Quicksilver, on the other hand, secretly loathes Security. As a victim of Security's destructive moneylending, he hopes "to live to see dog's meat made of the old usurer's flesh, dice of his bones and indentures of his skin" (2.2.162).[1][3]

Act 3

A messenger delivers the mortgage bond, a written document which will fund the voyage through Gertrude’s inheritance. Touchstone arrives with Golding and Mildred who are now married. Gertrude, now obsessed with her ladyship title, pretentiously flaunts on her rank and looks down on her family’s comparative poverty with prejudiced condescension.

Once Gertrude unsuspectingly signs the mortgage bond, Petronel makes hasty preparations to sail to Virginia and gives her a falsely reluctant goodbye. Before their departure, Quicksilver and Petronel deceive old Security. He tells him to distract the lawyer Mr. Bramble so he can disguise Mr. Bramble’s wife as Winifred and covertly take her aboard the ship. Instead, Quicksilver disguises Winifred and brings her on the voyage, fooling Security. Accompanied by Captain Seagull, Scapethrift, and Spendall, Petronel and his fellow adventurers set sail for Virginia. They revel in the promise of abundant gold in Virginia and spend the night drinking while Petronel and Quicksilver conceal Winifred’s identity from Bramble and Security. Their drunken dancing ends, however, when a heavy tempest assaults their ship.

Act 4

In the confusion of the storm, Security realizes the concealed identity of his wife. When he sees her escape with Petronel in a lifeboat, he suspects that he has been cuckolded. He is separated from Quicksilver and Petronel and washes ashore on Cuckold’s Haven where he stays in a nearby tavern in St. Katherine's. Winifred, who in reality did not leave the ship with Petronel, also arrives at the tavern along with Drawer, one of the Virginian voyagers from the Blue Anchor Tavern at Billingsgate.

Shipwrecked and disoriented, Quicksilver and Petronel lament their unfortunate state. After questioning two gentlemen as to their location, which Petronel assumes, is France. The gentlemen tell them they have arrived on the Isle of Dogs, a northern peninsula in the Thames. Also shipwrecked on the Isle is Captain Seagull who finds Quicksilver and Petronel. When the three discuss the problem of their lost possessions, Quicksilver says he will use his goldsmithing skills to create counterfeit money. Back in the tavern, Security and Winifred reunite and exchange stories. Security repents for suspecting Winifred’s unfaithfulness to him.

Nearby in London, the provident and careful Golding has been promoted to Master Deputy Alderman. He reports the dishonest voyagers’ troubles, and these “masterless men” (4.2.68)[3] have been arrested at Billingsgate for their crimes. As a result of Petronel’s deception, Gertrude has had to sell her opulent clothes and finery. She gregariously laments her misfortune with great self-pity while Sindefy listens jadedly. Sympathetic towards Gertrude’s ill-fortune, Mistress Touchstone advises her daughter to seek Mildred’s help.

Act 5

Brought before Golding and Touchstone, Petronel and Quicksilver admit their guilt in the charges brought against them, including Petronel’s dishonest marriage, the inheritance scam, and Quicksilver’s thievery. Touchstone is appalled and refuses mercy on the imprisoned men. Quicksilver sings a song about his repentance of his schemes and dishonesty, whose change in character and denouncement of vice moves Touchstone to amazement. Golding releases the criminals, including Security who still thinks he is cuckolded. Touchstone reinstates Quicksilver as his apprentice and Petronel as his son-in-law, covering the loss of their possessions and wealth. Gertrude, reunited with Petronel, also renouces her arrogance, prejudice, and lewd vanity to which Mistress Touchstone offers forgiveness. Winifred assures Security that she is faithful to him and he has been “infected” with “this wearing of yellow” (5.5.165),[3] which is a sign of jealousy.[1]

Touchstone thus ends Act 5 in an address to the audience:

Now, London, look about,

And in this moral see thy glass run out:

Behold the careful father, thrifty son,

The solemn deeds, which each of us have done;

The usurer punish'd, and from fall so steep

The prodigal child reclaim'd, and the lost sheep. (5.5.181-6)[3]

Authorship and Publication

On 4 September 1605, two stationers, William Aspley and Thomas Thorp entered Eastward Ho! into the Stationers' Register. The title page features all three authors (Chapman, Jonson, and Martson), the playing company who premiered the work, the Children of the Queen's Revels, and the playhouse, Blackfriars Theatre, where the play was first staged. Scholars have attempted to determine the respective contributions of the three authors but have not reached a full consensus.[4] Marston is normally assigned Act 1; Chapman is attributed to Acts 2 and 3; Jonson is usually associated with Act 5. Individual scholars, such as F. G. Fleay, T. M. Parrott, and Percy Simpson, have produced differing specifications for authorship divisions. Scholars generally do agree, however, that Chapman wrote Act 3, Scene 3 with the scandalous Scottish joke, even though Chapman blamed Marston for writing the offensive lines. E.K. Chambers reasons that "if Chapman spoke the truth, Marston must have interpolated the obnoxious clauses."[5]

Later in December 1605 and March 1606, George Eld, another stationer, printed more quartos issued by Aspley[6] to meet the high demands for the play.[7] In total, three more print editions of Eastward Ho! were issued within three months of its first publication.[8] The popularity of the play and the looming possibility of censorship probably quickened the publication process.[7] The surviving editions show evidence of deleted lines, missing passages, and altered passages. The censorship may have been issued by the Master of Revels, or his deputy, George Buc, who was also involved in play licensure until 1610.[7] The printed text of 1605 does not represent the full and offensive stage production of that year, though critics have disagreed as to whether the hostile official reaction was provoked more by the stage version or by the text.[9]

Reception and Scandal

Like other plays of fashionable private boys' companies, Eastward Ho! alludes to and even parodies popular plays from public, commercialized theatre. Scholars have traced references to Don Andrea in The Spanish Tragedy, Tamburlaine, and Hamlet's madness in Hamlet.[10] The play has also inspired the Industry and Idleness series by William Hogarth which also contrasts two apprentices and their lives. C.H. Hertford and Percy Simpson praise Eastward Ho as "one of the best made of Elizabethan comedies" with a "clear-cut strength and simplicity of structure" rare in dramas of its time.[11]

The play resulted in Jonson and Chapman being thrown in jail for a time, for offending the King with the anti-Scottish reference in Act III[12] Because of the scandal, a significant body of documentation exists regarding the play, including personal letters written by both Chapman and Jonson while they were in prison.[13] In 1619, William Drummond of Hawthornden recalled Ben Jonson explaining how he got into trouble "for writing something against the Scots in a play, Eastward Ho, and voluntary imprisoned himself with Chapman and Marston who had written it amongst them. The report was that they should have had their ears cut and noses".[14] However, because of his financial investment in the company, Marston fled and escaped arrest.[15] Jonson and Chapman were out of jail by November 1605; Chapman's commendatory poem in the first edition of Jonson's Sejanus (1605) appears to indicate that the Earl of Suffolk was influential in obtaining their release and resolving the matter.

Stage History

The play was never entirely banned or suppressed. It was revived by the Lady Elizabeth's Men in 1613 who performed the play on 25 January 1614 at court. In 1685, Nahum Tate revised Eastward Ho! to fit the fashions of Restoration theatre. Later, in 1751, David Garrick presented a "moralistic version." After Charlotte Lennox's sentimentalist version, Old City Manners (1775), the play had a relatively low production frequency in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[8]

The Royal Shakespeare Company revived Eastward Ho! in a production series which featured four other Jacobean plays in 2002. Directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace,[16] the play was performed at the Swan Theatre in 2002 with a positive critical reception.[12]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Bevington, David (2012). The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 531–534. ISBN 9780521782463.
  2. ^ Law, Jonathan (2011). The Methuen Drama Dictionary of Theatre. London: Methuen Drama. p. 166. ISBN 9781408131473.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Chapman, George; Jonson, Ben; Marston, John (2012). Bevington, David (ed.). Eastward Ho!. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521782463. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The New Intellectuals: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1977; pp. 91, 152–3, 223.
  5. ^ Chambers, Vol. 3, p. 256.
  6. ^ Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, p. 254.
  7. ^ a b c Gossett, Suzanne (2014). "Eastward Ho!: Textual Essay". The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online. Cambridge University Press. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  8. ^ a b Kay, W. David (2014). "Eastward Ho!: Stage History". The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online. Cambridge University Press. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  9. ^ Logan and Smith, pp. 146, 218.
  10. ^ Logan and Smith, p. 146.
  11. ^ Herford and Simpson, quoted in Logan and Smith, p. 216.
  12. ^ a b Nicol, David (September 2002). "Eastward Ho! by Chapman, Jonson and Marston, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, 2002". Early Modern Literary Studies. 8 (2).
  13. ^ Chambers, Vol. 3, p. 255.
  14. ^ Herford, C. H., and Percy Simpson, eds. Ben Jonson: The Complete Works. 11 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1925–54; Vol. 1, p. 143.
  15. ^ Gurr, Andrew (2009). The Shakespearian Stage, 1574-1642. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 69. ISBN 9780521729666.
  16. ^ Billington, Michael (26 April 2002). "Eastward Ho!". The Guardian. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

External links

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