"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!" So says Dick the Butcher in Henry VI, Part 2.

Lawyers and the law recur in Shakespeare's plays and poetry: from imagining "the sessions of sweet silent thought" in one of his sonnets to the trial of Queen Katherine in Henry VIII. Indeed, one of his most famous scenes (in an oeuvre of famous scenes) involves Hamlet speculating that the skull in his hand might be that of a dead lawyer:

"Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now? His quillets? His cases? His tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?"

In this article, we look at three trial scenes in Shakespeare. First up, we're off to Venice for a trial whose course is set by a woman in disguise…

The Merchant of Venice

Perhaps the most famous moment in The Merchant of Venice is the Jewish moneylender Shylock's eloquent plea for common humanity:

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

Despite its stirring message, it's this last attribute, revenge, together with greed, which motivates Shylock – to the point that some see Shakespeare's characterisation as antisemitic.

The play's plot is driven by a loan. A young Venetian nobleman named Bassanio needs the money to woo the beautiful heiress Portia. His cash-poor friend Antonio acts as the guarantor for a loan from Shylock. But Shylock, who has been the butt of Antonio's antisemitism, lays down a condition: if Antonio can't repay the loan, Shylock can take a pound of his flesh.

Antonio's merchant ships are lost at sea and his pound of flesh begins to tremble. The play climaxes in the court of the Duke of Venice, with Shylock demanding his due.

Portia, disguised as a young lawyer named Balthazar, visits the case and attempts to soften Shylock's heart with a famous speech about mercy:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

It's looking bad for Antonio until Portia manages to quibble with the terms of the original contract. Shylock is coerced into conversion to Christianity and the young lovers marry: a bittersweet ending indeed.

Measure for Measure

In Measure for Measure, Shakespeare imagines what would happen if a Duke went undercover to see how the city fared under his deputy.

The deputy, Angelo, doesn't do well. He's approached by Isabella, a novice nun whose brother, Claudio, is in trouble. She pleads with Angelo to intercede on Claudio's behalf. He agrees, but only if she sleeps with him.

The Duke, now disguised as a friar named Lodowick, helps Isabella thwart Angelo's plans. Things come to a head in another of Shakespeare's courtroom scenes. In this case, the Duke – now officially back in the city – hears Isabella's claims against Angelo and, after much ado, condemns Angelo to death.

Along the way, there are plenty of disguises coming on and off and, as you'd expect, some cunning plotting and beautiful language.

The Winter's Tale

Shakespeare's late play The Winter's Tale features a trial scene that doesn't, like the other two we've looked at, round off the action. In fact, it happens relatively early on.

We begin in Sicily, where King Leontes welcomes Polixenes, King of Bohemia. They're getting on like a house on fire until Polixenes says he's longing to get back to his kingdom. Leontes can't persuade him to stay, and calls on his pregnant wife, Hermione, to see if she can convince him.

Unfortunately, she persuades him a bit too well, causing Leontes to fly into a jealous frenzy, convinced that she is cheating on him with Polixenes.

Leontes orders one of his lords to poison Polixenes – but they both abscond. Now at the peak of his fury, Leontes throws Hermione in prison where she gives birth to a son. Leontes, convinced that the child is Polixenes', orders the newborn to be abandoned in a desolate place.

Two other lords, Cleomenes and Dion, visit the Oracle at Delphos and return to find Hermione on trial, protesting her innocence. They share with the King the Oracle's declaration that Hermione and Polixenes are innocent, but Leontes won't listen.

Things seem to be plunging irretrievably into darkness, but Shakespeare boldly fast forwards 16 years and the play begins to mellow into a touching comedy of reunion.

We may not weigh the words of oracles as evidence anymore, but the passions and injustices that Shakespeare depicts in The Winter's Tale will still ring true for many family lawyers.

The final curtain

One of Shakespeare's most famous lines comes from the mouth of the melancholy Jaques in As You Like It: "All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players".

His plays teem with life, both as lived in his society and as imagined in the past. So it's no surprise that the world of courts, trials and punishments would capture his capacious imagination.

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