In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare describes a scene where Mark Antony, the Roman, is enthralled by an Egyptian port city's grand reception of their Queen, Cleopatra.
"The city cast her people out upon her; and Antony, enthroned in the market place did sit alone, whistling to the air, which, but for vacancy, had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, and made a gap in nature," he writes.
But it's the description of the moment that kills it. Enorbarbus reports that even the winds were lovesick, pretty-dimpled boys fanned her delicate cheeks, gentlewomen tended to her eyes while a "seeming mermaid" steered the barge.
Already have an account? Login