The seven heads of the beast of hell are the seven capital sins by which the devil draws to himself also all the world. For scarcely it befalls that one falls not into the throat of some of the seven heads, and therefore St. John says well that it had power against the saints. For on earth is no man so holy that he can perfectly escape all the kinds of sin that come of these seven heads without special privilege of grace, as it was in the maid Mary, or in some others by special grace, which they had of God. The ten horns of the beast betoken the offences against the ten behests of our Lord, which the devil obtains, as much as he can, by the seven aforesaid sins. The ten crowns above betoken the victory that it (he) hath over all the sinful, because he causes them to sin against the ten behests. THE FIRST HEAD OF THE BEAST. The first head of the beast of hell is pride; the second is envy; the third, wrath; the fourth, sloth, which one calls in book-lore, indolence; the fifth, itching—in book-lore, avarice, or covetousness; the sixth, gluttony; the seventh, lechery, or luxury. Of these seven heads comes every kind of sin, and therefore they are called capital sins, because they are the head of all evil and of all sins, and the beginning of all evil, be they deadly, be they venial. Then each of the same seven divides into many divisions, and first we will talk of the sin of pride, because that was the first sin and the beginning of all evil. For pride first broke fellowship and order, when Lightbearer (Lucifer) the angel, because of his great beauty and his great wit, would be above the other angels, and would make himself equal to God, who had made him so fair and so good, and therefore he fell from heaven and became a devil, both he and all his fellowship. All the proud, who fellowship and order of men destroy and break, are like him, when they will be above others, and be more famed and praised than any other that are more worthy. THE MIGHT OF PRIDE. This sin of pride is too dreadful, for it (she) blinds men, so that they themselves neither know nor see; it is a very strong and a very special aid to the devil, whereby he beguiles the high men, and the fair, and the rich, and the wise, and the hardy, and the honourable, and generally every manner of folk, but especially the great lords, so that they themselves neither know nor see their misdeeds, nor their follies, nor their faults (_read_ wytes); then is it the most perilous sickness of (all) others. Forsooth he is in great peril, to whom every remedy turns into venom, as do teaching and chastisement to the proud. For the more one reproves and blames and chastises him the more angry he is and the more weary he becomes.