WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

purple passage
    n 1: a passage full of ornate and flowery language

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

36 Moby Thesaurus words for "purple passage":
   adornment, asiaticism, beauties, colors, colors of rhetoric,
   device, elegant variation, embellishment, embroidery, euphuism,
   figurative language, figurativeness, figure, figure of speech,
   fine writing, floridity, floridness, flourish, flower, floweriness,
   flowers of speech, flowery style, frill, image, imagery, lushness,
   luxuriance, manner of speaking, nonliterality, nonliteralness,
   ornament, ornamentation, purple patches, trope, turn of expression,
   way of speaking