[1] The outlines of this story, and much of the dialogue, in Scenes II., IV. and V., are taken from the Acta Sanctorum and S. Ambrose.


Sunset. A high rocky pasture above Alexandria. In the year of Our Lord 304.

Didymus, a young soldier, enters and throws himself down.


Didymus.

THIS mound is sweet to me. All my blood aches,

Since driven onward like a dark hill-cloud,

Dizzy with secret lightnings nowhere spent,