Dagger vs Sword
The short weapon against the long: closing from the Boar’s Tooth, and the three wagers of dagger and scabbard against the sword.
Folios
Folio summary — Dagger vs Sword
| Getty folio | Plates | Content | Getty images | Verse witnesses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19r | [1]–[4] | The Master in the Boar's Tooth, and three plays | — | PD 35a · Paris 20r–20v |
| (none) | [5] | The counter to the turn | — | PD 35b-a |
| 19v | [6]–[9] | The three wagers | [6]–[9] | PD 35b · Paris 20v |
| 20r | [10] | The wager paid | [10] | PD 36a-a |
Three Getty folios plus one Pisani-Dossi-only plate, 10 plates, 14 illustrations. The section divides cleanly in two, and the halves barely resemble each other. The first is fencing — a Master waiting in a guard, a cover, a scholar at the close, a turn by the elbow — and its whole argument is that the dagger beats the sword only by closing, which is why the Master's beat retreats his foot instead of advancing it and why "with dagger against sword he always wants the close play" ([Dagger-Sword 2]). The second half is not fencing at all but three bets, in which the terms are announced aloud, both men consent, and the play is the payment. Fiore's answer to all three is the same object: the scabbard — braced against the arm ([7]), beaten up over it ([8]), driven into the face ([9]).
Two things stand out across the witnesses. This is where the Morgan re-enters the book after having no grappling, dagger, or baton at all — and where it gives out again four folios later, its gatherings so disordered that its [7] sits at 17r-a, ahead of its own opening. And it is the one section where the verse carries the counter and the prose loses it ([5]) — the mirror image of the grappling, where the couplets give the boast and only the Getty tells you how to escape. The two fullest witnesses are each missing exactly one play of the ten, and not the same one: no [5] in the Getty, no [9] in the Pisani Dossi. Only the collation is complete.