Medea
Gilbert Murray (1906)
Performed at the City Dionysia in 431 BCE, at the very outset of the Peloponnesian War. Euripides dramatizes Medea's revenge on Jason, who has abandoned her for a political marriage — culminating in her killing of their own children. The play is one of the earliest and most unflinching literary treatments of a woman's rage at male betrayal and has remained a touchstone for later tragedy and feminist thought.
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