First, it seems ridiculous to reveal what is supposed to be inside a building—not to come out, be it observed, but to stay inside—by thrusting forth one or two people on a species of dray. But we must remember the enormous and rightful influence of convention. If Greek audiences wished to see such _tableaux_ and were convinced that by no other means could they be shown, then it was their business to accept the eccyclema; that in such circumstances they would accept and soon fail even to notice it, is proved by the whole history of art. We see nothing ludicrous in the spectacle of a man telling his deepest secrets in a study one wall of which is replaced by a vast assembly of eavesdroppers. The Elizabethan theatre accepted precisely this contrivance of the eccyclema. In our texts of _Henry VI_ (Pt. II, Act III, Sc. ii.) we read this stage-direction: “The folding-doors of an inner chamber are thrown open, and Gloucester is discovered dead in his bed: Warwick and others standing by it”. Instead of all this, the old direction merely says: “Bed put forth”. In another early drama we find the amusing instruction: “Enter So-and-So in bed”. The æsthetic objection to the eccyclema has no force whatever. The other objection rests on the fact that a more elaborate _tableau_ is sometimes indicated than could be accommodated on so narrow a platform. The most serious example is provided by the _Eumenides_, where we are to imagine upon the eccyclema an altar, Orestes kneeling by it, Apollo and Hermes standing beside him, and the whole chorus of Furies sleeping around them. In Aristophanes’ _Clouds_ the interior of Socrates’ school is exhibited, with pupils at work amid lecture-room appliances. A brilliant scene of the same poet’s _Acharnians_ depicts Dicæopolis’ interview with Euripides, who is too busy to come downstairs from his study-attic, but consents to be “wheeled out”. Thus the eccyclema shows him outside and also aloft: how could this be represented on the dray? Perhaps by elevating poet and furniture upon posts? Even this is not inconceivable.[181] Nor is it impossible that the Furies of the _Eumenides_ were arranged on two eccyclemata of their own, thrust out of the side doors, while Orestes and the gods were upon the central platform. For Pollux does say that there were three.