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Pride before a Fall // Braylan Stringfellow

    Between lines 1202 and 1214, Beowulf is told the story of Hygelac the Great causing his own death because Hygelac decided that he had to fight the Frisians. Hygelac became extremely proud in his own abilities after he successfully defended his treasure. Hygelac's pride lead him to believe that he could beat the Frisians. Line 1205 best describes what happened to Hygelac by saying "Fate swept him away because of his proud need" (Heaney 85). 
     What happened to Hygelac has happened so many times to so many people throughout history. Someone becomes so caught up in their success that they think they can take anyone one and it becomes their downfall. You would think that people would see this and would try to stay humble and not get prideful, but pride is so deceptive in that you won't realize until its too late. Falling victim to pride is as much of a danger to Christians as it is to the world that the same thing can happen to us. It happened to King David. It can easily be avoided, however, if we remember to keep God first and give him credit for giving us the ability to do something instead of us taking all the credit.

I commented on Caroline's and Emmett's post

Comments

  1. Jamie PetersFebruary 22, 2021 at 5:46 PM

    I agree with you, Braylan, pride is the biggest downfall of man, especially in our relationship to God. It will be interesting to see why that particular story was placed into "Beowulf". Was it because the writer wanted to preserve that "history"? Or maybe it was foreshadowing?

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