So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d, / Will sate itself in a celestial bed / And prey on garbage.
Act I, Scene 5
Context
The Ghost describes how lust can corrupt even a seemingly virtuous person, causing them to abandon something pure for something debased.
Analysis
Shakespeare sets 'celestial bed' and 'garbage' side by side within a single sentence, using juxtaposition to collapse the distance between the sacred and the disgusting. The verb 'prey' animalizes lust, framing Gertrude's sexuality as predatory rather than passive, which contradicts the Ghost's earlier claim that Claudius seduced her. This slippage—is she victim or predator?—reveals the Ghost's confused misogyny, where Gertrude is both innocent and monstrous at once.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that the Ghost's rhetoric about Gertrude is self-contradictory—he cannot decide if she was seduced or if she chose corruption, and this confusion gets passed to Hamlet, whose treatment of his mother swings wildly between pity and rage because the Ghost gave him no coherent moral framework.