#1,043: Misreading the Bard of Avon

July 14, 2025 / Kurt F. Stone

It’s simply amazing how many epochal, history-making events can pile up when you stay away from the news for a single week - a mere 168 hours. First and foremost, there was that horrific storm surge that took the lives of oh so many children, along with their parents and camp counselors in a tiny Texas county, not to be overshadowed by the boorish, nonsensical response from Felon47 . . . praising state leaders for their heroic efforts, all the while telling the nation that no one could have predicted a “once-in-a-thousand-year storm.” (n.b. Yes, I know, it now seems that we suffer through a “once-in-a-thousand-year storm” about twice a year.)

Next came the meeting of two world leaders (‘47 and Netanyahu), the latter of whom gave his full-throated endorsement of the former, for the Nobel Peace Prize. Upon hearing this, my morning tea literally started dripping from my nose. I mean, ANYONE nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Bibi Netanyahu has got to have a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning. (President T, I would remind you that only 4 of the Nation’s Chief Executives have ever won that award, and despite what you may think of yourself and your actions, you are neither Theodore Roosevelt nor Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter nor Barak Obama. Can we get a bit of agreement on that salient point?)

Things were so bad during this past week when I was paying attention to nothing but my wife’s cardiac surgery that even my beloved Dodgers went on a 7-game losing streak . . . their longest since 2017. C’mon guys you really didn’t have to do that. I mean, getting outscored 52-17 over the 7 games, including an 18-1 drubbing by the Houston Astros? And at Dodger Stadium in front of more than 50,000 fans?

Getting back to the news I missed, there was also

IT turning on President Putin for being a bully (in other words, finally realizing that the Russian dictator has long considered him to be nothing more than a “useful fool”);

The utter idiocy of Secretaries Noem and Hegseth, both of whom should find a hallowed spot in the Guinness Book of World Records;
The now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t rise and fall of tariffs against our supposed friends;
Threatening a 35 percent tariff on many goods from Canada, in part because of the country’s role in allowing the flow of fentanyl into the United States. (FACT: Canada makes up just 0.2% of US border fentanyl seizures.)
The number of lower court judges who have ruled against the regime on every move under the sun ranging from POTUS’ right to singlehandedly eliminate “birthright citizenship” to using ICE to pick up people of color and jail them without any due process;
The DOJ’s move to sit on (and utterly deny) the -called “Epstein Files,” which would implicate IT (and a swarm of very, very famous, salacious men) in sex trafficking and having a grand and finally,
SCOTUS inoculating POTUS with a legal shield that makes Pumpkin Punim all but immune to any FEDERAL legal charge(s).

It’s this last issue - SOCTUS’ voting 6-3 (so what else is new?) to indemnify their all-time favorite tyrant from any legal trouble - that brings to mind perhaps the best-known (and least understood) line from Shakespeare’s 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 3 long narrative poems . . . this one coming from Henry VI, Part II, Act 4, Scene 2 . . . where one of the enemies of King Henry, Jack Cade, is told by one “Dick the Butcher” that the solution to all their problems is “The first thing we must do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

I cannot tell you how many times I have read or heard people quote this verse without know either:

Its source of origin, or
What Shakespeare is doing his very best to say. Is he really, truly in favor of rubbing out all lawyers . . . or is he being ironic . . . or is it something that few people get?

**The Family’s Avon Edition of Shakespeare (1878)**

Before we get into Henry VI, Part 11 and what that famous line of Dick the Butcher means in terms of today’s politics, a bit of transparency: while I am not what you would call a Shakespearean scholar, the Bard has been a part of our family’s life for several generations. In each generation, one member of the Hyman/Kagan/Schimberg/Stone clan is given the honor of holding on to (and reading) our family’s one-volume Avon Edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. It has been in the family for precisely 147 years. I received the honor of holding on to it a little over 40 years ago. And so, while I can claim to have read much of what the Bard of Avon wrote, taken numerous classes, seen quite a few stage productions, and screened what I consider to be the best of his filmed works for my students, I am nothing more than an extremely avid amateur.

The context in which Dick the butcher utters this most famous (or infamous) of all Shakespearean phrases is key to understanding its true meaning. And there still are several possible readings.

This is where the quote lies, in dialogue:

JACK CADE: Valiant I am.

SMITH [aside]: A must needs; for beggary is valiant.

JACK CADE: I am able to endure much.

DICK [aside]: No question of that; for I have seen him whipp’d three market-days together.

JACK CADE: I fear neither sword nor fire.

SMITH [aside]: He need not fear the sword; for his coat is of proof.

DICK [aside]: But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being burnt i’ th’ hand for stealing of sheep.

JACK CADE: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoop’d pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king,– as king I will be,–

ALL. God save your majesty!

JACK CADE: I thank you, good people:– there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

DICK: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

**Jack Cade and Dick the Butcher (The BBC)**

Dick is a villainous character—he is a large, threatening murderer, and he is also the right-hand-man of Jack Cade, who is leading a rebellion against King Henry. Cade and Dick are aggressively anti-intellectual; they kill anyone who can read and burn all the books and documents they encounter. They know that they’ll be able to take over an ignorant population with greater ease than one where everyone understands their rights.

One reading of this strange quote suggests, therefore, that society could not exist in a state of fairness and peace without the protectiveness of both the law and its staunch guardians. Dick is suggesting that, in order for their coup to prevail, they must eradicate society of the very defenders of justice who could both stop the revolt he intends to help spur, and then remove the power he hopes to grab for Cade. Understood in this way, Dick the Butcher is a combined Stephen MIller/Pam Bondi to Jack Cade’s IT. Cade is so warped that when his personal thug (Dick the Butcher) rapes a Sergeant’s wife, and the Sergeant reports it to Cade, Cade orders the Butcher to kill the Sergeant as well. This is one bloodthirsty dude.

All this suggests that when the Bard puts the words “. . . let’s kill all the lawyers” in the mouth of Dick the Butcher, Shakespeare is actually representing lawyers as the most fundamental defense against the grossest manifestations of power-hungry antics wrought by the scum of humanity.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens actually shared this reading of the line, even analyzing it in a 1985 decision: “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”

But, as scholar Daniel Kornstein notes in his book Kill all the Lawyers: Shakespeare’s Legal Appeal, this quote could also have been a class-focused criticism of lawyers, a group of professionals committed to securing the interests of the wealthy. Cade is a laborer and longs to overthrow the oppressive upper-classes, and Dick recognizes that lawyers stand in their way. This is a far more obvious (though IMHO incorrect) interpretation of what Shakespeare had in mind.

It turns out that “Let’s kill all the lawyers” is a terribly convoluted phrase that (somehow always) refers to the importance of maintaining a fair rule of law that protects the people. But whether lawyers are mere symbols for evil or good is almost irrelevant; the most important thing about this quote is the upholding of a fair and just legal system, itself. Today many are striding (while others are goosestepping) down a perilous pathway in which lawyers can be protectors of justice and enemies of both anarchy and autocracy one moment, then protectors of the hyper-wealthy and enemies of both democracy and the entire legal system itself the next. It is all so damnably difficult to understand. Honesty, empathy and civility are in short - or near nonexistent - supply. A misguided sense of fealty has made voiceless, irresolute cowards of far too many.

After taking a week off from the news to attend to my wife’s health, I am also reminded of another Shakespearean character: Ariel, the free spirit in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, who famously said, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

Nonetheless, as we say in Hebrew, גם זה יעבוֹר (gahm zeh ya-ah-vore), meaning “This too shall pass.” It is said when times are terribly difficult and filled with anxiety. And we mean it. Interestingly, however, it is also said when things are going swimmingly. It proclaims a balance; nothing lasts forever. Make no mistake about it: this evil era will one day pass; when, no one knows. But we can help make it happen not by “killing all the lawyers,” as Dick the Butcher would have it, but rather by girding ourselves with greater civility, empathy and inner strength. And by keeping our mouths open . . .

For those who want to express themselves, this coming Thursday, July 17, 2025, there will be nationwide protests. If you would like to join in the fight to uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach (and perhaps make the TACO and his gang squirm and shiver, go to FiftyFifty One and find where the closest protest to your home, school, or work will be happening.

Good Trouble Lives On!

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