“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.”
― Sophocles, Antigone
Honor is a major component of ancient Greek culture, which weaves its way through out the great epics of the time. It is perhaps the single most important entity to some of the most renowned heroes. However, the desire for honor seems to have the power to lead such famous men into the clutches of “excessive pride”, or hubris (Oxford Dictionaries.com). As a result, choices tend motivated by the idea of increasing not only their honor, but soothing their insulted pride. Their actions tend to be chosen because of their honor was insulted, which as a result has wounded their pride, and it seems necessary to seek revenge. These choices sometimes lead to devastating consequences and retribution by the gods and other men. The two, honor and pride are so intertwined with one another, that it can be hard to distinguish between the two. However, heroic mortal men like Achilles and Odysseus, whose stories are found within The Iliad and The Odyssey, experience and are often consumed by the damming vice of pride, or hubris, and therefore are subjected to the ramifications that come with their decisions.
In order to distinguish between the actions done through honor, or pride, it is necessary to set a standard definition of the two. According to the online Oxford dictionary, pride is “a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements…or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired” (Oxford Dictionaries.com). Pride is often categorized as a vice, something that is negatively represented with unjust morals. That is why it is categorized as one...
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...l result of their accomplishments, but some take it further until it becomes excessive. This hubris affects their lives over and over again. However, characters like Achilles, Ajax and Odysseus continue to make the choices to defend their sense of honor that become unjust and produce negative aftereffects. Like Sophocles says: “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.”
Works Cited
Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Group, 1990. Print.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Group, 1996. Print
“honor.” Oxford Dictionaries.com. Oxford Dictionaries, 2014. Web. 1 March 2014.
“hubris.” Oxford Dictionaries.com. Oxford Dictionaries, 2013. Web. 1 March 2014.
“pride.” Oxford Dictionaries.com. Oxford Dictionaries, 2013. Web. 1 March 2014.
Of all the heroic traits such as honor and glory, given to the reader through Homer’s epic poems loyalty seems to be the strongest, as with Patroclus in the Iliad, so it is with Penelope, Telemachus, and Eumaeus in the Odyssey. Through the use of these characters loyalty is demonstrated to Odysseus, the hero if the poem. Their undying loyalty and devotion to the warring hero gives perfect examples of how humans should act to those they claim to be faithful too.
One of the clearest points of honor and honor culture within The Odyssey is found in the encounter of Odysseus and the Cyclops. While the punishment that Poseidon rains down on Odysseus may be seen to stem from his arrogance in announcing his name to the Cyclops on his escape, “I called back with another burst of anger ‘Cyclops-/ if any man on the face of the earth should ask you/ who blinded you, shamed ...
Along the same line as humility comes pride. Odysseus had more pride and cockiness than any of the characters I have read about this semester. He didn’t seem as bad in the Iliad, but the Odyssey really showed him in a different light. He had to swallow his pride when he had to come back to his home and get it back. Just in the fact that he came back at all was pride swallowing. He lost all of his men.
The Ancient Greeks admired their heroes and tried to learn from both their achievements and their mistakes. They believed that most great leaders and warriors followed a predictable behavior cycle, which often ended tragically. In Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, Achilles is a great warrior who traces the stages of the behavior cycle twice, from arete to hubris to ate and then to nemesis. Achilles is a highly skilled warrior and a great leader who becomes a narcissist and an arrogant person, which leads to selfish and childish behavior resulting in the death of his best friend. Following Patroclus’ death, Achilles repeats the behavior cycle by regaining his courage and motivation, and goes back to battle against Hector. The pride he feels in killing Hector and his overpowering hatred for him, leads Achilles to another bad decision: disrespecting the body of his enemy. This foolish choice leads directly to Achilles death. Although The Iliad is mainly known as a story about the Trojan War, it is understood as a story about Achilles and his struggle to be a hero.
- Achilles, was also brought to ruin by his pride. For example, he was too
In conclusion, one sees that honor is central to the Greeks because honor is the foundation of family and society. Both texts, the Iliad and Antigone depict the goal of every Greek hero is to ensure his place in the social memory of his society by seeking honor in his lifetime and performing a proper burial after he passes away. The pursuit of honor is the driving force for what Greeks have done to their society, family and friends. Both texts imply that family’s love is a main ingredient in making decisions. Because of love, Achilles, Priam and Antigone are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to gain honor for themselves as well as for their families.
In the Homeric world, honor is qualified by power. In the Iliad, power is measured several ways. When Nestor tries to mediate between the enraged Achilles and Agamemnon, he makes the point that “power and glory [are] given by Zeus himself” (Book I, Line 294). A king is the ultimate in nobility, even if he is the king of a small, poor Greek city. Being a king depends on accident of birth, not on ability, and is a sign of the gods’ favor. Because the gods have smiled on him, “a scepter-holding king has honor beyond the rest of men” (Book I, Line 293). In the Greek army...
"A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you" was stated by C. S. Lewis. Hubris, an over abundance of self confidence, is a common problem in Greek myths. It usually stems from characters not acknowledging those who are superior to them, usually the gods and goddesses. This is what happens in the stories Daedalus and Icarus, Phaethon, and Arachne. The characters let their pride prevent themselves from making the right choices. An excessive amount of pride from the characters in Daedalus and Icarus, Phaethon, and Arachne negatively impacts their choices.
Even though pride can be a good thing at times, it is hurtful, it is an emotion that can make or break someone.
Throughout the Iliad, heroic characters make decisions based on a specific set of principles, which are referred to as the “code of honor.” The heroic code that Homer presents to readers is easy to recognize because the heroic code is the cause for many of the events that take place, but many of the characters have different perceptions of how highly the code should be regarded. Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors, begins the poem as a model for a hero. His dedication and firm belief in the code of honor is described many times throughout the course of the Iliad. As a reward for heroic traits in battle, prizes were sometimes awarded to victors of war. In Book 1 Achilles receives Chryseis as a prize and a symbol of honor. Heroism had its rewards and its setbacks which ultimately was the backbone of the Illiad in the case of Achilles prize. Hector, arguably the greatest Trojan warrior or even the bravest of the Homeric heroes is very fierce and fights for what he believes is his destiny. In book VI Hector expresses his bravery when Andromache pleads with Hector not to fight when Hector says, “But I would die of shame to face the men of Troy and the Trojan woman trailing their long robes if I would shrink from battle now, a coward. Nor does the sprit urge me on that way. I’ve learned it all too well. To stand up bravely, always to fight in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers, winning my father great glory, glory for myself” (VI, 387).
The conflict between Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone brings to life a battle that we all have within us. Many times it is written that this play portrays a conflict between pride and morality. However, it can also be seen that Antigone isn’t a show of pride versus something else, but pride versus itself. With the two main characters we are shown two different sides of pride, a passionate pride and an authoritative pride. The pride of the characters ultimately leads to their deaths. Reading this play from the surface level, it, along with many other works can cause one to say that pride is an all around negative characteristic, but pride is much more two-faced than that, being both beneficial and destructive. Some may be quick to argue that pride is evil and deadly, but it could also be argued that it is the exact opposite. It all depends on how it is used and to what extent it is being used. The goal of this paper is to use the conflict between Antigone and Creon to examine the two types of destructive pride and discuss how pride, when used in a right way, is absolutely essential to who we are as humans.
In the book the Iliad, The Odyssey, and Works and days, there are many things that can be similar when talking about Greek heroes and the world of Greek poetry. The stories and topics are describing similar events during this time of the eighth and seventh century B.C. In the end, however, they do have some differences in some parts when describing or explaining certain situations and ideas. The world of Greek heroes is written like a story; or Epic Poetry. That is what The Iliad and The Odyssey are; Epic Poetries. They are telling a story of a great hero and their adventures. On the other hand, the more realistic Greek World that is being described in Works and days is a Didactic poem, which tells more of a moral or message to the reader.
When we say pride and self-respect have a fine line of differentiation then I mean, if pride is honorable, then it is not pride but self-respect. It does not ruin the person, if stays within the ego. If pride exits without the feeling of superiority or if pride allows respect towards the other person’s self respect then pride is allowing the person to be open to new things. Therefore pride is not pride actually but it is self-respect.
The Iliad and the Odyssey are two classic stories told by Homer. Within these two stories the roles of the gods are very important to the story line and how they affect the characters throughout. In the Iliad, more gods are involved with the characters whereas in the Odyssey there are only two major gods that affect two major characters. The roles of the gods in the Iliad are through two different stances of immortal versus immortal and mortal versus immortal. The roles of the gods in the Odyssey are through two major gods and they affect the plot as Poseidon versus Odysseus and Athena versus Telemachus.
In 1297AD, pride was described as “A consciousness or feeling of what is befitting or due to oneself or one's position, which prevents a person from doing what he considers to be beneath him or unworthy of him; esp. as a good quality, legitimate, ‘honest’, or ‘proper pride’, self-respect; also as a mistaken or misapplied feeling, ‘false pride’” (OED 4). This type of pride is personal pride and the image a person must maintain to keep it. A person cannot allow them self to act in such a way that would be demeaning. An example of this would be a drill sergeant getting down with his recruits and performing the same demeaning drills as they are. The sergeant’s years of hard work and service would not be taken seriously if he were to lower himself to the level of their recruits therefore lowering his sense of pride.