Antony & Cleopatra, tonight

So chuffed, as my London friends would say, that National Theatre is going to stream Antony & Cleopatra for the next seven days, starting today.

How good was William Shakespeare? Here is the source material for a speech in Antony & Cleopatra:

She disdained to set forward otherwise, but to take her barge in the river of Cydnus, the poope whereof was of gold, the sailes of purple, and the owers of silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the sounde of the musicke of flutes, howboyes, citherns, violls, and such other instruments as they played upon in the barge. And now for the person of her selfe: she was layed under a pavillion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddesse Venus, commonly drawen in picture: and hard by her, on either hand of her, pretie faire boyes apparelled as painters doe set forth god Cupide, with litle fannes in their hands, with the which they fanned wind upon her.

Here is what Mr. WS did with that:

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold;

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,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,

O’erpicturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature.

On each side her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids,

With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid did.

• National Theater on Youtube (link)