hubris

Oedipus' overwhelming hubris led to his ultimate destruction

Oedipus' overwhelming hubris led to his ultimate destruction

Oedipus' overwhelming hubris led to his ultimate destruction

In the TV show Strangers With Candy, one of Principal Blackman's (played by Greg Hollimon) most famous sayings is "hubris, overweening pride". Gotta love it!

Warning!! Doggerel Attack!!!

Elegy for Eliot : The Lovesong of A.G. Spitzer


Let us go then, you and I
While the evening is spread out against the sky
Like the Baghdad skyline behind Wolf Blitzer
Or a criminal taken down by A.G. Spitzer


In the room the women come and go
“I’m called an escort, not a ho.”


The corridors of power are lonely, late at night
The bad guys all day long you have to fight
You deserve a little reward – maybe a cookie?
Nope – even a hero needs some nookie.


In the room the women come and go
“Plastic works, a cheque, or cash to go.”


Temptation looms – a vision, out of reach.
The voice of conscience: “Don’t you eat that peach!”
Too late! Our hero reaches for his cheques.
Another politician laid low by the lure of sex.


In the room the women come and go
“Eliot? Oh yeah, huge ego and libido.”


I should have been a pair of ragged claws
scuttling across the shores of silent seas.
Instead my taste for high-priced whores
Has made of me the emperor of sleaze.

I found it in a footnote on P 174 of Christopher Booker's "The Seven Basic Plots":

Hence the true meaning behind the Greek notion of hubris, originally derived from hyper meaning 'over'. We shall look later at why the ancient Greeks saw the tragic pattern as one of hubris followed by nemesis. Although in the modern world the term hubris is often understood to mean a kind of cosmic arrogance or price (of the type inviting a fall), its derivation shows how it was originally meant to convey precisely that idea of 'stepping over the bounds' discussed here.