bounds downward would be to become a beast. In
this ethical scheme, pride, understood negatively
as an overly high opinion of oneself, figured as a
principal human flaw in societies in which divine
and human authority were well established. It
kept human beings in their place and subjects in
order. “Pride goes before a fall,” teaches one famous
Hebrew proverb, representative of the cautionary
warnings against human overreaching so richly
documented in the tradition of the medieval De
casibus, Giovanni Boccaccio’s chronicles of the fall
of great men. Besides the Judeo-Christian tradi-
tion, other great religions of the world—Buddhism,
Hinduism, Islam, Taoism—seem to have their own
variant against the sin of pride, suggesting a univer-
sal bias against any action that places self-love before
universal love, the basis of most religious systems.
At the same time, despite these constraints on
mortal aspiration, early heroic societies worshipped
human excellence, especially in the form of military
prowess. Honor in these ancient and medieval war-
rior societies was achieved through physical strength,
skill, and the courage to die in battle for one’s cause.
Pride, as an excessive regard for honor, became a
focal point in the great epic poems of Homer, who,
in particular, was able to capture the psychological
drama of heroes acting as human beings with vir-
tues and flaws in situations of crisis. Because of
his superior qualities, the Homeric hero was more
easily prone to exhibit hubris, roughly translated as
excessive pride—as though one is greater than the
gods—often expressed through violent acts. A prime
example is Achilles in The iLiad, the Greek warrior
in the Trojan War, considered to be the first tragic
hero in literature. This epic poem explores the con-
sequences of its principal conflict of egos between
the Greek commander Agamemnon and Achilles,
his greatest warrior, in which both behave in hubris-
tic ways, resulting ultimately in increased harm and
death to many on their side. Flaunting his power,
Agamemnon shames Achilles publicly by forcing
Achilles to deliver to him Briseis, the maiden he has
claimed for his own. Despite his righteous anger,
Achilles’ decision to withdraw from battle cripples
the Greek army and causes thousandfold pains on
his comrades, notably his best friend, Patroclus,
who, mistaken for Achilles, is killed by the Trojan
commander Hector. Despite his worthy qualities
of military prowess, capacity for compassion, and
understanding of the human condition, Achilles, in
his wrath, commits what is to the Greeks an intoler-
able insult: the outrageous treatment of slain Hector
of dragging the dead body behind his chariot for 12
days before returning it to the Trojans.
As in the epic, pride figures importantly in
Greek drama, which further explored the ambiva-
lent qualities of the tragic hero in powerful ways.
Sophocles’ oedipus the kinG explores the reli-
gious and social function of myth by examining this
Greek hero as an archetype of the scapegoat and the
usurping son, centered on the theme of hubris. A
close comparison of an oral version of the myth with
Sophocles’ dramatic interpretation amplifies not
only the tragic vision by which the culture grappled
with the limitations of human life but also the play-
wright’s aesthetic achievement: to get the audience,
in Aristotle’s words, both to pity and fear Oedipus’s
tragic situation. After hearing the oracle predict
that the plague upon his city will not lift until the
murderer of his predecessor is punished, Oedipus,
king of Thebes, initiates a methodical investigation
of the death of the king, only to find out in his role
as responsible ruler that he himself is culpable for
the murder. This discovery reveals the key irony of
Oedipus’s hubristic actions as a young man: his deci-
sion to evade a horrible prophecy that he will kill his
father and marry his mother only leads him to fulfill
it. This very human response reveals an irrational
double-mindedness. If he believed the oracle to be
true, he should have also believed that it was futile
to evade it. Instead, Oedipus hubristically tries to
evade the oracle but proceeds so carelessly—reflec-
tive of youth’s delusion of invincibility—that he does
precisely what he should have forbidden to himself:
kill an older man his father’s age, let alone kill any-
one, and marry someone his mother’s age. Through
his past and present actions, Oedipus gravely trans-
gresses the Delphic oracle’s prescriptions for virtu-
ous life: “Know thyself ” and “Nothing in excess.”
Pride is further explored through the myth
of Prometheus, the Titan advocate of man, who
incurs eternal punishment for his act of bringing
fire to humankind. Whether Prometheus is a heroic
rebel, a savior, or a hubristic overreacher is a ques-82 pride