Lady Macbeth learned from Machiavelli

Lady Macbeth:

[...] To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue. Look like th'innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't.

William Shakespeare - Macbeth

Darius of Persia the predecessor of Machiavelli

' If a lie is necessary, why not speak it? We are all after the same thing, whether we lie or speak the truth: our own advantage. Men lie when they think to profit by deception, and tell the truth for the same reason - to get something they want, and to be the better trusted for their honesty. It is only two different roads to the same goal. Were there no question of advantage, the honest man would be as likely to lie as the liar is, and the liar would tell the truth as readily as the honest man. '

Herodotus - Histories (III, 72)