It is clear why this is among the most performed Greek tragedies from antiquity through the present. The story is simple: Jason (no relation!) has left Medea for King Creon's daughter. She is mad about it. Very mad. Possibly even goes actually mad. She poisons Creon, his daughter, and then murders her own children and flies off in a chariot with their dead bodies.

What makes it interesting is her remarkable speeches. One about the lot of women and how childbirth is more than three times as difficult as going to fight in war. Another about whether or not to kill her children. And then Jason's speech about how she should be grateful he ran off with a powerful woman because it will be good for his children. The other part of what makes it interesting is the deceit, the way she pretends to have forgiven and come around, but really is just playing a deep game and plotting murder. That level of deceit is not something that I remember anywhere else in Ancient Greek literature with the rather notable exception of Odysseus.

Some of it feels ridiculous (why exactly does she need to kill her children when she has a flying chariot she could take them away in?) It does not feel like grappling with a weighty moral dilemma but more like an out-of-control crime of passion.

But overall pretty amazing reading.