In between keeping tabs on the Trump administration’s mess-up over its executive order on immigration, I spent some time over the weekend reading. I don’t have the best track record with New Year’s resolutions, but so far I’m ahead of schedule on my plan to read the complete works of Shakespeare. One of things I’ve learned so far is that not everything the Bard of Avon wrote was great. For instance, I found the Henry VI trilogy an interminable soap opera, but even Shakespeare’s lesser plays are notable for one reason or another. For instance, Henry VI part II contains the famous line, “‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
The line is particularly interesting, because in proper context it doesn’t mean what it’s come to mean. Shakespeare was in no way being arch or making a cynical joke. The line, spoken by one “Dick the Butcher,” was meant to explain his villainous intent. Rule of law is something that most Americans take for granted, so it’s easy to gripe about the excesses of the legal profession today. But in Shakespeare’s time, one of highwaymen and violent jockeying for the throne, respect for law and order was considered an essential mark of individual character, hence Shakespeare’s reverence for lawyers.
