A coating material for surgical sutures which comprises as essential ingredients calcium stearate and a copolymer having repeating units derived from lactic acid and epsilon -caprolactone; and a surgical suture comprising a lactic acid/ epsilon -caprolactone copolymer in which lactide/ epsilon -caprolactone is (70-85 mol%)/(30-15 mol%) and the number of epsilon -caprolactone repeating units is 2.5 or larger on the average.
