Having watched my way through most of the five hours and forty minutes of Cleopatra starring the very gorgeous (and may she rest peacefully - or noisily if she'd rather) Elizabeth Taylor and handsome as you like Richard Burton, I can see why Ms Taylor reportedly delayed shooting so the script could be rewritten. And rewritten. I dread to think where it started out. But it did bring me (literally) hours of entertainment for all that.

To follow, some of my favourite lines.

Caesar (to Cleopatra): I'm not sure I want you to rub me at all, young lady.

Cleopatra: The corridors are dark, gentlemen. But don't fear. I am with you.

(Bitter) Caesar: I've given up wine. And trusting.

Caesar: You should attack my guards more often. Battles become you. You grow more beautiful every time I see you.
Cleopatra: And you grow balder.

Cleopatra (as Antony kneels to her): You have such bony knees.
Antony: Not only bony but unaccustomed to this kind of thing.

Antony: I have a fondness for Greek things.
Cleopatra: As an almost all Greek thing, I am flattered.

Antony: Never. Something women say to begin with.

Cleopatra (inviting Antony to stay the night): How long would you stay?
Antony: Until I have nothing left to say.

Antony (to Cleopatra): Don't ask me to be clear about my feelings right now. I'm too tired. And with you, even at my best, it's too hard.

And on Antony's return to Rome.

Cleopatra: How will I live?
Antony: The same as I. One breath upon another.

Beautifully melodramatic. They must have had a ball making it.

You should, by now, know how it ends. Badly is the answer. Antony jabs himself in the heart with a sharp thing and Cleo shoves an asp (or a man in a lycra suit with a blue mohican) down her front.

In this particular film, it's very delicately rendered.

Antony stabs himself more or less bloodlessly and gasps his last with a manly furrow of the brow, many touching sighs and a powerful longing stare.

But Elizabeth / Cleopatra is exquisite. After a conspiratorial nod, her maidservant trots in with a dumpy little basket. On opening, it contains only innocent figs. But wait. Look closer. The innocent figs are seething. And then. Oh my. A dark asp comes wriggling and writhing out of the dumpy basket. A long look at Elizabeth Cleopatra. All big beautiful eyes and haughty cheekbones and a look - The Look - of despair.

And then she womanfully raises her hand and - shock. gasp. - plunges it boldly into the dumpy basket of not so innocent figs. She wrinkles her nose ever so slightly as the asp's fangs sink into her finger, imparting its venom into her ivory skin. And then she lays herself back, ever so gently, onto the handily placed bier, murmurs a few final epic tragic words. And softly dies.

Elizabeth, I hope the asp was as gentle in real life.