Today’s word of the day is hubris (/ ˈhyu brɪs, ˈhu- /–the ˈhu- indicates an acceptable alternative pronunciation; it is not uncommon in English for a word to have more than one acceptable pronunciation). It means “excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hubris?s=t). According to etymonline.com, the word first appears in English in “1884, a back-formation from hubristic or else from Greek hybris ‘wanton violence, insolence, outrage,’ originally ‘presumption toward the gods;’ the first element probably PIE *ud– ‘up, out’ (see out (adv.)) but the meaning of the second is debated. Spelling hybris is more classically correct and began to appear in English in translations of Nietzsche c. 1911 (https://www.etymonline.com/word/hubris#etymonline_v_14525)

Just a few quick notes on the etymology. A back-formation is word that is made from an already existing word by taking away an affix (a prefix or suffix in English, which does not have any infixes). Usually words are derived from other words by adding an affix, such as employment (a noun) being derived from employ (a verb). But in this case the adjective hubristic (“from Greek hybristikos ‘given to wantonness, insolent’”) had entered English over 50 years before the first appearance of the noun hubris. “PIE” may look like something to eat, but it actually stands for “Proto-Indo-European.” PIE is the great-grandparent of all the languages in the Indo-European language family, a family which includes English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Urdu, and many others. It is a “proto” language because we have no direct evidence (no manuscripts or other writing) of the language—linguists figured it out by going back through regular sound changes. Finally, please notice that there are uncertainties that linguists recognize as uncertainties—our knowledge is often limited.

The classic example of hubris comes from Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex (or Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus the King). When Oedipus was born, according to the myth, his parents learned from the Oracle at Delphi, a famous prognosticator, that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. In an attempt to defy the gods and their own fate, they sent the baby with a servant up into the mountains, where he was to be left to die, staked to the ground by one foot. But a shepherd from nearby Corinth discovered the baby and rescued him, and he was adopted by the king of Corinth. Later, Oedipus learned of the prophecy, and wanting to escape it, he left Corinth because he thought his mother and father were there. On the road, he ran into his real father, and in an argument, Oedipus killed him. He continued on to Thebes, where he rescued the whole city from the curse of the Sphinx by answering its riddle. As a reward, the people of Thebes, having learned that their king has died, offer the throne to Oedipus, their savior, along with the queen as a bride. Because of his sins, Thebes falls into a period of famine. Oedipus learns that someone has committed a terrible crime, but he doesn’t know who, so in the play, he determines that he will discover the criminal and punish him, not know that he is the criminal. You can see presumption toward the gods all over the place in this classical story.

On this date in the year 1398, Tamerlane (or Timur or Tamberlaine or several other variants, indicating perhaps that he was lame) defeated Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq and the army of Mallu Iqbal in a battle outside of Delhi, India. The army of Mallu had elephants, and Tamerlane’s men were, justifiably, afraid of the elephants. So he had his men pile wood and straw on the backs of his camels, and when the Mallu army charged with their elephants, Tamerlane’s men lighted the piles on the backs of the camels and drove them toward the elephants. Elephants, apparently, panic easily, and they panicked at the sight of burning camels (I would, too). The tactic led to a victory for Tamerlane, and he and his army proceeded to sack the city of Delhi, killing 100,000 in the process.

Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright and contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote two plays about Tamerlane, called Tamburlaine the Great, parts 1 and 2. The real Timur was a Turkic nobleman, but Marlowe makes him the son of a Scythian shepherd who works his way up through the ranks to become an emperor. His success is revealed through a series of battles in which he conquers large armies with more experienced commanders—in other words, he’s always the underdog. But he believes that he is destined to become a great conqueror. At one point, he utters these lines:

I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains,

And with my hand turn Fortune’s wheel about,

And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere

Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome. (Part One, 1.2.173-176)

He should have knocked on wood. Of course, it does take more than a full play before he finally succumbs to death, but he is human. And the lines are as clear an example of hubris as one might find in any literature.

By the way, Tamburlaine the Great, along with The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kid, marks the beginning of the great period of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. It is also an example of how Marlowe introduced blank verse into the drama; blank verse is often referred to as “Marlowe’s mighty line.” And to finish the historical note, Timur died six years after the conquest of Delhi.

The image is from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TimurTheLame, though I couldn’t tell you why.