Hamlet

Act 3, Sc. 1, lines 50-55: How might what Claudius says be connected to what the Ghost has told Hamlet?

King. [aside] O, 'tis true.

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

O heavy burden!

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Polonius is instructing his daughter Ophelia how to look deceitful when she runs into Hamlet. The King hears this and considers his own deceitful actions involving killing his own brother. This certainly represents what the ghost has told Hamlet about Claudius,

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts— O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!
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