Shakespeare was fluent. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, he has Pistol saying:“Why, then the world's mine oyster.
Which I with sword will open”
In Richard II,
“Off goes his bonnet to an oyster wench”
Then this intriguing line in Much Ado
“Love may transform me to an oyster”
Then there is this curious and haunting image from As You Like It when Touchstone pronounces:
“Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster”
And King Lear’s Fool jests:
“Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?”
