Two women passionately love Fernando. Both have been abandoned by him in the past and have suffered deeply, making them companions in their destiny.

Cecilia (the wife) proposes to Fernando that they live together with Stella (the mistress) and share "one house, one bed, and one grave." They do not relinquish Fernando, but rather the desire for each to keep him only for herself. They do not reject the lover, but the conventions.

Influenced by a medieval myth, Goethe writes a drama, at the end of which appears a "love triangle," perfectly expressing the sensitivity and individuality of the "Sturm und Drang" movement, which provoked an angry reaction from the conservative audience of the time.

The work is presented for the first time in the Greek language, and the edition includes both versions of the finale: the 1776 version, which caused a sensation with its unprecedented "immorality," and the 1806 version, in which Goethe, perhaps at Schiller's urging, turns the drama into a tragedy, thereby restoring the moral order.