Auspicious speech

Use in the book

The first occurrence concerns names that flatter unintelligence: great-souled, simple, innocent, inexperienced and tongue-tied. Calling these the most auspicious names does not make the conditions good. It exposes the difference between a favourable verbal surface and the character named. That initial joke prepares for the later claim that religiously proper wording must be measured by more than pleasant sound.

When Socrates mentions matricide, Alcibiades cries speak auspiciously. Socrates answers by attending to the proposition actually uttered: he has denied that Alcibiades would be willing to do such a thing, and the person requiring correction would be one who asserted the contrary. The response is playful but exacting. Verbal alarm can itself fail to discriminate between the mention of an act and its endorsement.

Ammon’s preference for Spartan auspicious speech over the Greeks’ combined rites moves the issue from wording to the content of the request. Socrates explicitly offers his interpretation: by the phrase the god means the Spartan prayer. Its restraint keeps it from naming arbitrary possessions as goods. The other Greeks can accompany an ill-judged petition with magnificent offerings and still speak inauspiciously.

This trajectory also makes silence positive. At 150c the safest speech-act for Alcibiades is to keep quiet until he learns. Auspiciousness is not a magical substitute for knowledge; restraint can acknowledge its absence. The return to greatness of soul makes the flattering name from 140c part of the final diagnosis.

Places to read

1. 140c–140dPolite descriptions of unintelligence are named most auspicious.
2. 143dAlcibiades’ injunction is turned back onto the actual meaning of Socrates’ sentence.
3. 149bAmmon prefers Spartan auspicious speech, which Socrates interprets as their prayer.
4. 149c–150c23Ill-judged petitions and the advice to keep quiet disclose what good religious speech requires.

Translation in this edition

The edition keeps auspicious throughout instead of varying the family into kind names, reverent words and lucky prayer. Its Key Words compare sacrificial speech in Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 1563–1564 and Ion 1187–1193. Those parallels establish the ritual register; they do not turn every occurrence here into a technical ritual command.

Use in the book

Socrates says Εὐφήμει immediately after the companion accuses him of deception. The shift is striking: an objection to argumentative conduct receives a response associated with the propriety and omen of speech. Rather than first analysing where the alleged deception lies, Socrates treats the accusation as something the companion ought not say and invokes obedience to a good and wise man.

The injunction opens the Hipparchus narrative. It creates a pause between an angry or suspicious claim and the extended account of cultural authority. On a sympathetic reading, Socrates is insisting that the charge is unjust to a friend. On a more ironic reading, the elevated rebuke attempts to displace scrutiny with reverence. The text does not provide a stage direction that settles the tone, and translating the word as a generic exclamation would remove the ambiguity rather than resolve it.

The later response proves that the rebuke has not ended the dispute. After hearing the story, the companion again says that he cannot be persuaded Socrates is not deceiving him. The speech has become no more auspicious in substance, but the objection is now sharpened by the maxim Socrates himself introduced. The passage consequently distinguishes controlling what an interlocutor says from answering the reason he has for saying it.

Nothing here establishes that a sacrifice, oath-taking rite or formal religious observance is currently under way. The dialogue gives no setting. The expression retains a religiously coloured social force without permitting reconstruction of a ceremony around the speakers.

Places to read

1. 228bΕὐφήμει — The imperative interrupts the accusation of deception.
2. 228bἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῷ καὶ σοφῷ — The justification appeals to a good and wise man.
3. 229eοὐ δύναμαι πεισθῆναι — The companion’s later reservation shows the dispute remains open.

Translation in this edition

“Speak auspiciously!” is intentionally more specific than “Hush!” or “Don’t say that!” The supplied note explains the good-omen sense and compares Alcibiades II 143d. That comparison is lexical and dramatic; it does not make the two dialogues’ occasions identical or prove common authorship.