Getty 11v
Two counters aimed at the First Master himself, a play performed on a counter's behalf, and one more scholar's grip. This is the folio where the Getty's cross-referencing comes apart: [Dagger 30] describes one figure and names another, and the verse family — which points somewhere else entirely — is the internally consistent one.
I am the counter of the first King of the dagger, called Remedy. For he ill knows how to remedy with his plays who lets his left hand be seized. And by this grip that I have, I can plant the dagger in his back.
- This answers the First Master himself, not one of his scholars.
- The diagnosis, delivered as a rebuke: he let his left hand be seized. A Remedy Master who allows that "ill knows how to remedy with his plays".
- Seize that left hand — the hand that was going to take your dagger ([Dagger 17], verse) is the hand you take.
- From that grip, plant the dagger in his back.
- The verse adds what the Getty leaves out: the grip is a lock (ligadura), and it costs nothing to make.
The counter attacks the remedy's premise rather than its execution. The First Master's whole family runs through the left hand; take the hand and there is no family.
I too am a counter of this first Remedy of the dagger; for [because of] the grip that his scholar makes on me, I will strike him in this way, and I will be forced to let go. And if he wants to make other plays against me, I will make the counter to him without any delay.
- A second counter to the same First Master — the text marks itself as an additional one ("I too am a counter of this first Remedy").
- The situation is different from [Dagger 25]'s: here the Master's scholar already has a grip on you.
- Strike him "in this way". The Getty names neither target nor hand; the plate has to carry it.
- The strike breaks the grip.
- A standing promise closes it: whatever else he tries afterwards, the counter comes "without any delay".
The Getty's clause here — "e me convegnira lassare" — is grammatically loose about who releases whom; what the play needs is that the grip comes off.
This is a counter that is not mine — rather it is the play of the counter that is above me, that is, of the second counter, who has bound the companion's hand with his dagger, and who says that he can plant the dagger in the companion's back. And that play of his I perform. Although he says "in the back," I put it in the chest — and it is still his play, because it can be done this way too.
- Doctrine before technique: the figure disclaims the play. It is not his — he is performing someone else's.
- Whose, identified twice over: the counter above him on the page, who is also "the second counter", who bound the companion's hand with his dagger, and who said he could strike the back.
- What he does: that same play — the same bind, the same grip.
- What he changes: he puts the point in the chest, not the back.
- His justification: it is still the other man's play, "because it can be done this way too."
A rare passage of the book reasoning about its own taxonomy — what makes two figures the same play. Fiore's answer is that the hold is the play and the target is a variable. See the comparison: the two identifications in this plate do not point at the same figure.
I am a scholar of the first King and Remedy. And with this grip I want to take the dagger from you and lock your arm; for I do not believe that you know how to make the counter against me, and so I will do this to you without delay.
- A scholar of the First Master — back inside the Master's family after two counters.
- From this grip, two things at once: take the dagger, and lock the arm.
- His stated reason for going ahead: he does not believe you know the counter.
- So do it without delay — speed is the point, because the counter does exist, on the very next folio ([Dagger 32]).
Fiore's plays are honest about their conditions. This one works because of the opponent's ignorance, and says so. Compare [Grappling 14], where a play's safety is speed and nothing else.
Glossological analysis
- Re = rimedio = magistro ([25], [29], [31]) — "the first King of the dagger, called Remedy"; "this first Remedy"; "the first King and Remedy". Three names for one crowned figure, used interchangeably on a single page.
- ligadura (PD, [25]) — the verse calls the counter's grip a lock ("Aquesta ligadura a farla non me pena"); the Getty calls it only tal presa, "this grip". The verse classifies where the prose points.
- schena ([25], [30]) — the back, and specifically the spine; the Paris makes it anatomical — renes, the kidneys. The only target on this folio unreachable from the front, and the thing [Dagger 30] argues about.
- compagno ([30]) — the companion: Fiore's neutral word for the other man, used where zugadore would assign a role. It carries no warmth — the companion is who you put the dagger into.
- lo segondo contrario ([30]) — "the second counter". An ordinal used as an address, exactly like "the third play of the First Master" at [Dagger 19]. Note that segondo elsewhere in this section means "according to" ([Dagger 54], [Dagger 101]); with the article it can only be the ordinal.
- sopra de mi ([30]) — "above me": the Getty locates a cross-reference by position on the page rather than by number, the same habit as counting "the third play of the First Master". Both [25] and [29] stand above [30] on folio 11v, which is why the phrase alone does not settle which is meant.
- sença tardare ([29], [31]) — "without delay". The section's recurring hedge: several plays are sound only if done at once ([Dagger 63], [Grappling 14]).
Manuscript comparison
- The referencing crux at [30] — and the two families do not point the same way. The Getty's [30] identifies its referent twice, and the two identifications do not meet. By description it is unmistakably [Dagger 25]: only [25] "has bound the companion's hand with his dagger" (Pisani Dossi "Aquesta ligadura…") and only [25] "says that he can plant the dagger in the back" (Getty "la daga in la schena gli posso fichare") — which is the whole point of [30]'s "although he says 'in the back', I put it in the chest". By ordinal it is "the second counter", which on the Getty's own page is [Dagger 29] (11v-b) — whose text mentions neither a bind nor the back. Meanwhile the verse family points firmly at [29], and does it by verbatim echo: Pisani Dossi [30] answers "the counter that spoke of doing harm and worse" (mal e peço) and Pisani Dossi [29] ends "Cum tal coverta li faro mal e peço"; the Paris repeats the trick in Latin (mala quam plura at both [29] and [30]). The verse witnesses are internally exact here; the Getty is not.
- A likely explanation, offered as one. In the Pisani Dossi these counters sit together on folio 8a in the order [28] (8a-a), [29] (8a-b), [30] (8a-c) — where [29] genuinely is the second counter on the page. The Getty's ordinal fits the verse family's layout rather than the Getty's own, and the Getty then re-describes the referent to suit the figure that actually stands above it. The text does not say this; it is a reading of the two arrangements.
- The Getty gathers what the verse family keeps apart. This one Getty folio draws its four plates from two Pisani Dossi pages — 8a-d ([25]), 8a-b ([29]), 8a-c ([30]), and thirteen figures earlier 6b-e ([31]) — and takes the 8a plates out of the Pisani Dossi's own order. The Pisani Dossi's 8a is a dedicated counters-to-the-First-Master page: six plates, [25]–[30], every one a counter or a counter-counter. The Getty has no such page; it spreads those counters across 10v, 11r and 11v and mixes a scholar's play in among them.
- The Paris is bound nowhere near this order. Its four texts here sit at 44r-b ([25]), 43r-d ([29]), 43v-d ([30]) and 25r-a ([31]) — a nineteen-leaf spread for one Getty page, with the counters filed some twenty folios after the scholar's play they follow.
- Illustrations. [25] shows both the Pisani Dossi's plate (08a-d) and the Getty's (11v-a), allowing a direct comparison of the two traditions on the same counter; [29] and [30] are the Pisani Dossi's (08a-b, 08a-c); [31] shows the Paris's figure (25r-a) beside the Pisani Dossi's (06b-e) — the first Paris illustration in the section.
- Coverage. Getty, Pisani Dossi, Paris all four. Morgan none.