The most accepted meaning is that the work is an allegorical warning against discord, and it's inevitable lead to hell and death. Compositionally, the positioning of the women matches a marble group of the three graces known in the early Renaissance, and likely Dürer would have seen it from copies. A common interpretation is that figures represent Hecate, who according to the "often represented with three faces or bodies, probably to suggest that she could look in all directions at doorways or crossings". Alternatively, the woman from the second right wearing a wreath may represents Discordia, the Roman goddess of strife and discord, who threw an apple amongst Juno, Minerva and Venus, igniting the Trojan War. Or it may be that that woman is being initiated by three witches.