Elizabeth as Cleopatra

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold,	224
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,	228
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description; she did lie
In her pavilion,—cloth-of-gold of tissue,—
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see	232
The fancy outwork nature; on each side her
Stood pretty-dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,	236
And what they undid did. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale   Her infinite variety; other women cloy  272 The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry   Where most she satisfies; for vilest things   Become themselves in her, that the holy priests   Bless her when she is riggish.