Lines 77-79
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
Eliot's Note
77. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, l. 190.
Context
In Act II, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, Enobarbus describes Cleopatra's royal barge as it appeared when she first pursued Marc Antony:
Enobarbus
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that
The winds were lovesick with them. The oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke and made
The water they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.
River barges appear again in Part III during the song of the Thames-daughters in lines 266-306.
References