Getty 19v
Three wagers (partiti) in four plates: set-piece bets in which a man with a drawn dagger has hold of a man whose sword is still in its scabbard, and one of them says he will strike first. [6] states the terms and [7] answers them; [8] states and answers its own; [9] states a third and defers the answer to [Dagger-Sword 10] on the next folio.
This is a wager (partito) of dagger against sword. The one who has the dagger, and holds the one with the sword by the collar (cavezo), says: "I will strike you with my dagger before you draw the sword from the scabbard (guagina)." And the one with the sword says: "Strike away, for I am ready." And as the one with the dagger goes to strike, the one with the sword does according to what is depicted hereafter.
- The setup: the dagger-man has the swordsman by the collar (cavezo), dagger in hand; the sword is still in the scabbard (guagina).
- The dagger-man's bet, spoken: "I will strike you with my dagger before you draw the sword."
- The swordsman accepts, spoken: "Strike away, for I am ready."
- The dagger-man goes to strike.
- The plate stops there. It is the terms, not the technique — the answer is the next plate ([Dagger-Sword 7]).
This is doctrine about what a partito is, as much as a play: the conditions are announced aloud and agreed to by both men before either moves. Nowhere else does Fiore let a wager's terms be negotiated in direct speech.
When this one raises his arm to give me [a blow] with the dagger, I have immediately set the scabbard (guagina) braced against his dagger arm, in such a way that he can give me no trouble. And immediately I unsheathe my sword, and so I can strike him before he can touch me with his dagger. I could also take the dagger from his hand in the way that the First Master of the dagger does [Dagger 17]. I could also bind him in the middle lock (ligadura mezana), which is the third play of the dagger of the First Master, who is the Remedy [Dagger 19].
- He has your collar; his dagger arm goes up to strike. That lift is the tempo the whole wager is won in.
- Set the scabbard braced against his dagger arm (la guagina apozada al suo brazo) — the sheathed sword, held crosswise, jams the arm before it can come down.
- With the arm shut down, he "can give no trouble": now unsheathe.
- Strike him with the drawn sword before his dagger can touch you.
- Or, instead of drawing: take the dagger out of his hand, the way the First Dagger Master does ([Dagger 17]).
- Or: bind him in the middle lock ([Dagger 19]) — the same lock cited at [Dagger-Sword 4].
Fiore's answer to the bet is not speed. He does not race the dagger to the target; he brackets the dagger arm with the one object the wager assumes is useless — the scabbard — and only then draws.
This is another wager (partito) of sword and dagger. The one who holds the sword with its point on the ground, in the way that you see, says to the one with the dagger, who holds him by the collar (cavezo): "Strike away with the dagger at your ease: for the moment you go to strike with the dagger, I will beat my sword up over your arm, and with that I will unsheathe my sword, returning backward with my right foot; and in this way I will be able to strike you with my sword before you strike me with your dagger."
- The second wager, and the swordsman's posture is the bet: he stands with the sword's point on the ground, and the dagger-man has him by the collar.
- The invitation, spoken: "Strike away with the dagger at your ease" (a tua posta).
- The instant he commits to the strike: beat the sword up over his arm — from the ground, upward, across the incoming arm.
- In that same motion (e in quello), unsheathe —
- — and return backward with the right foot. Beat, draw, and withdrawal are one action, not three; the text binds them with "in that".
- Strike him with the sword before the dagger arrives.
Unlike [Dagger-Sword 6], this wager needs no second plate: the Master's speech contains the whole play. The point on the ground is not a disadvantage he overcomes — it is the loaded position the beat is thrown from.
This is a wager (partito) similar to the one before, although it is not done in the way that is described before. This play is done in this way: when this one with the dagger raises his arm to strike me, I will immediately lift my sword upright beneath your dagger, setting the point of my sword's scabbard (guagina) into your face, returning the foot that is in front backward. And so I can strike you, according to what is depicted after me.
- The third wager: "similar to the one before" — and the Getty then contradicts itself about whether it is done the same way (see the comparison).
- He raises his dagger arm to strike — the same tempo as [Dagger-Sword 7] and [Dagger-Sword 8].
- Lift the sword upright, beneath his dagger — still sheathed, rising into the gap under his raised arm.
- Set the point of the scabbard into his face.
- Return the front foot backward — the same withdrawal that [Dagger-Sword 8] uses, taking your body out of the dagger's reach while the scabbard occupies his face.
- From there, strike — as the next plate shows ([Dagger-Sword 10]).
Three wagers, three answers, and all three are the scabbard: braced against the arm ([7]), beaten up over it ([8]), driven into the face ([9]). The wager assumes the sheathed sword is not yet a weapon. That assumption is the thing being punished.
The Getty repeats itself contradictorily here — "it is not done in the way that was said before. This play is done in the way that was said before…" — most likely a scribal slip; the sense is that this wager resembles [8] but is executed differently. The voice also shifts mid-sentence from describing the dagger-man ("this one… to strike me") to addressing him ("your dagger… your face"); the shift is in the original.
Glossological analysis
- partito ([6], [8], [9]) — a wager / set piece; the same word (spelled partido) that the grappling gives its conditional tricks ([Grappling 14], [Grappling 16]). This folio is the best evidence in the book for what it means, because here the agreement is spoken: the dagger-man announces what he will do, the swordsman answers "strike away, for I am ready." A partito is a play whose conditions both men have accepted before it begins — not "party", and not a play that is divided or apportioned.
- invito (PD, [6], [8]) — the invitation: the verse's term for the same thing, naming who is offering the terms rather than what the terms are. As translated here the two witnesses do not assign it to the same man — see the comparison.
- cavezo ([6], [8]) — the collar of the garment (from capitium, the neck-opening), the grip that sets up both wagers. Not "head", despite the capo root: the man is held by his clothing, which is why he cannot simply step back.
- guagina ([6], [7], [9]) — the scabbard; with the verb sguainare ([7], [8]), "to unsheathe". Not a prop: at [7] the scabbard makes the cover, at [8] it is what the beat is thrown with, at [9] its point goes into the face.
- a tua posta ([8]) — "at your ease / as you please". A trap for the reader who has just met posta = guard at [Dagger-Sword 3]: the same word, here the ordinary idiom of consent, two folios apart.
- impazo ([7], [10]) — trouble, hindrance (impaccio): "in such a way that he can give me no trouble". Fiore's standard term for what a brace or a lock takes away from a man — the same claim the middle lock makes at [Dagger 19].
- stranio (PD, [8]) — strange, "another strange wager". The same marker the grappling puts on its strania presa ([Grappling 16]): a play outside the ordinary repertoire, not a foreign one.
- a posta / a tua posta vs spetta ([1] against [8]) — worth setting side by side: the Master of the first half waits (spetta) for an attack he has not invited; the wager-Masters of the second half invite the attack and name its terms. Same section, two opposite relationships to the opponent's initiative.
Manuscript comparison
- Coverage is at its thinnest here. [6] and [7] have Getty, Morgan, and Pisani Dossi; [8] has Getty, Pisani Dossi, and Paris but no Morgan; [9] is the Getty alone — no verse, no Morgan, no Paris. The section's third wager, and the scabbard-point to the face, rest on a single witness.
- Morgan out of sequence at [7], and then it stops. The Morgan's text for [7] sits at 17r-a, on a folio earlier than its [1]–[6] (18r-d, 18v-a…d). This is gathering disorder, not a variant reading: the same disarrangement puts the Morgan's sword-in-one-hand plays (17v-a…d) between its dagger-vs-sword plays. Its folio order is no evidence of its play order. After [7] the Morgan has no more of this section.
- A garbled ending in the Morgan at [6]. The Getty closes "and as the one with the dagger goes to strike, the one with the sword does according to what is depicted hereafter"; the Morgan drops that clause and garbles what remains. Its [7] carries a false start (lada[!] guagina) and a slip (tezo[!] for terzo) within a few lines — a poor stretch of copying in an otherwise near-verbatim cousin (Manuscript comparison §6).
- The Getty contradicts itself at [9], and shifts voice inside the same sentence. It reads: "although it is not done in the way that is described before. This play is done in the way that is described before…" (Ben che non si faça per tal modo ch'e ditto e qui dinanzi. Questo zogo se fa per tal modo ch'e ditto qui dinanzi). The two clauses cannot both stand; the second is most likely the scribe's eye repeating the formula from the first. The sense required — and the one the play then describes — is that this wager resembles [8] but is executed differently. In the same passage the voice slides from the third person ("when this one with the dagger raises his arm to strike me") to the second ("beneath your dagger… into your face"); that shift is in the original. No other witness exists to arbitrate either problem.
- The invitation changes hands in the verse. As translated here, the Pisani Dossi gives the invitation to the sword at [6] ("the sword holds the invitation against the dagger") and to the dagger at [8] ("the dagger makes the invitation against the sword"). The Getty has the swordsman speak the invitation in both — "strike away, for I am ready" at [6], "strike away with the dagger at your ease" at [8]. On the prose's account the two wagers are the same offer made twice; on the verse's, they are mirror images.
- Illustrations. [6]–[8] show the Pisani Dossi (35b-b…d) beside the Getty's own figures (19v-a…c) — three direct visual comparisons of the two traditions on the same wager. [9] is the Getty alone (19v-d): here picture and text come from the one witness that has the play.