To render, however, his task easier to the public, some precautions were taken to let them perceive where they were. Sometimes the name of the place was written on a piece of wood or canvas, a clear and honest means.[794] It worked so successfully that it was still resorted to in Elizabethan times; we see "Thebes written in great letters upon an olde doore," says Sir Philip Sidney, and without asking for more we are bound "to beleeve that it is Thebes." In other cases the actor followed the sneering advice Boileau was to express later, and in very simple fashion declared who he was: I am Herod! I am Tiberius! Or again, when they moved from one place to another, they named both: now we are arrived, I recognise Marseilles; "her is the lond of Mercylle."[795] Most of those inventions were long found to answer, and very often Shakespeare had no better ones to use. The same necessities caused him to make up for the deficiency of the scenery by his wonderful descriptions of landscapes, castles, and wild moors. All that poetry would have been lost had he had painted scenery at his disposal. Some attempts at painted scenery were made, it is true, but so plain and primitive that the thing again acted as a symbol rather than as the representation of a place. A throne meant the palace of the king. God divides light from darkness: "Now must be exhibited a sheet painted, know you, one half all white and the other half all black." The creation of animals comes nearer the real truth: "Now must be let loose little birds that will fly in the air, and must be placed on the ground, ducks, swans, geese ... with as many strange beasts as it will have been possible to secure." But truth absolute was observed when the state of innocence had to be represented: "Now must Adam rise all naked and look round with an air of admiration and wonder."[796] Beholders doubtless returned his wonder and admiration. In the Chester Mysteries a practical recommendation is made to the actors who personate the first couple: "Adam and Eve shall stande nakede, and shall not be ashamed."[797] The proper time to be ashamed will come a little later. The serpent steals "out of a hole"; man falls: "Now must Adam cover himself and feign to be ashamed. The woman must also be seized with shame, and cover herself with her hands."[798]