Women, instigators of tragedy in the works of Shakespeare It is the very error of the moon; it comes nearer to the earth than it usually was, and drives men mad. (Othello 5.2.112-14) The moon is often seen in literature as an allegory of love, virtue and chastity. In Shakespeare's comedies, in particular, the moon is personified by Diana, the Roman goddess of chastity. In these comedies, the senseless antics of the (literally "mad") lovers usually occur under the auspices of the chaste goddess, with the lovers behaving like dogs at her feet biting each other in competition for her bounty. The moon as an allegory for the folly of romance helps us understand Shakespeare's view of romance. In tragedies, however, the moon can represent several things at once: Diana, the goddess of Chastity; the cyclical nature of Fortune; and Hecuba, the witch of madness. These figures, as their names indicate, are feminine. Tragic heroes often call their wives the moon. Wives are often seen as possessing, at different times, elements of the various associations with the moon. I argue that by examining the different allegories of the moon addressed to the principal women in the tragedies, we can see the multiplicity of Shakespeare's attitude toward women. Often in tragedies the moon serves as an allegory for the variability of fortune, the inconstancy of women and, therefore, the cause of madness. For this article, I will systematically show the different allegories of the moon present in several tragedies. Then I will show how the multiplicity of these allegories is similar to the multiplicity of the main women in the tragedies. Several leading women in tragedies are...... middle of paper...... actresses in the downfall of the heroes. Would the heroes have met such a tragic end without the women? Noting the references to women as once chaste, now fickle, and still fickle, I assert that they are the cause of the heroes' madness. Othello kills his wife because he believes she has cuckolded him, leading to not only her death, but also that of his comrades and himself. Lady MacBeth urges her husband to kill Duncan. Because of his love for Cleopatra, Antony meets a tragic end. Similar to the moon's ability to drive men crazy, wives drive tragic heroes crazy. Othello, as the epigraph to this article suggests, would certainly agree. Works Cited Hankins, John Erskine. Contexts of Shakespeare's Thought. Hamden, CT: Archon Book, 1978. Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Alvin Kernan. New York: Signet, 1963.