There were, however, scenes which were acted without any setting. The Elizabethans did not feel it necessary to have every scene definitely localized. Consequently, many scenes which are described in our modern editions of Shakespeare as 'A Street,' 'A Place before the Castle,' etc., were not definitely assigned to any place, and were usually acted without settings on the front stage before the closed curtains. In order that no time should be lost while properties were {44} being changed, such scenes were commonly inserted between scenes requiring properties, so that a certain alternation between set and unset scenes resulted. The fourth act of the _Merchant of Venice_, for example, begins with the court-room scene, which demanded the whole stage, the properties for the court-room being set on the back stage, with perhaps some moved toward the front. The fifth act takes place in Portia's garden, which also took up the whole stage, with garden properties set on the rear stage. Between these two scenes comes the one in the street, which was acted before the closed curtains and required no properties. The arrangement is somewhat like that followed in many modern melodramas, where a scene not requiring properties is acted in front of a drop scene while scenery is being set behind. The raising of the drop--which corresponds to the opening of the Elizabethan curtains--not only reveals the setting behind, but also makes the whole stage, including that part which was in front of the drop, the scene of the action which follows.[3] ====================================================================== [Illustration: TIMON OF ATHENS, v, 3. INNER SCENE. _Enter a Souldier in the Woods, seeking Timon._ "_Sol_.--Timon is dead, who hath out-stretcht his span, Some Beast reade this; There do's not live a Man. Dead sure, and this his Grave, what's on this Tomb." Reproduced from _The Shakespearean Stage_, by V. E. Albright, through the courtesy of the publishers, the Columbia University Press.] ======================================================================