24 February 2011 Aiax. Will you subscribe his thought, and say
he is? Ag. No, Noble Aiax, you are as strong, as valiant, as
wise, no lesse noble, much more gentle, and altogether more
tractable. Aiax. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow?
I know not what it is. Aga. Your minde is the cleerer Aiax, and
your vertues the fairer; he that is proud, eates vp himselfe;
Pride is his owne Glasse, his owne trumpet, his owne Chronicle,
and what euer praises it selfe but in the deede, deuoures the
deede in the praise. Aiax. I do hate a proud man, as I hate the
ingendring Nest. Yet he loues himselfe: is’t not strange?
William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act. II, scene iii
(First Folio Edition) Holding pride of place among the Seven
Deadly Sins, pride has a bad reputation, and it was pride of
course that was the occasion of Satan’s fall. Even outside a
strictly theological context, we have the above-quoted passage
from Shakespeare on pride, in which The Bard artfully, true to
holding up a mirror to nature,