Maurice Maeterlinck

Mary Magdalene Maurice Maeterlinck

The chief characters are Mary Magdalene and her lover, Lucius Verus, a Roman military tribune. At the beginning of the play he is telling his friend, a master in philosophy, Annaeus Silanus, that he has lost trace of her. She had not appeared to accept his love. Though she was, a courtesan, "not at all inexorable to the Roman knights." Silanus tells him that she is now living not far away, in the retirement of a marble villa.

One day she hears the Nazarene?s voice and goes down toward him and will not be stopped. But the crowd presently discovers her and chases her back with cries of "The adultress! Stone her!" until the voice is heard saying,"He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her." The crowd retreats.