Getty 14v
The Fourth Remedy Master and three of his plays. Everything on the page grows out of one hold taken with both hands ([56]): two upper locks that share a single counter ([58], [59]), and a throw declared to have none ([61]). The two plays the Getty passes over — [Dagger 57] and [Dagger 60] — survive only on the facing Pisani Dossi page.
I am the Fourth Master, who plays with this hold (presa). With one like it my scholars will do harm to many. And if I turn to the right side and do not release your arm, I will take your dagger from you and give you trouble with it.
- Seize the dagger arm with both hands — this hold (presa) is the whole Master; he has no cover of his own.
- From it the scholars work above and below alike (verse) — the hold does not care which way the dagger came.
- If you turn to your right side and keep hold of the arm —
- the dagger comes out of his hand, and you use it on him.
The turn, not the hands, is what strips the dagger: the grip only has to not let go.
This is an upper lock (ligadura soprana) that closes up well. I can take your dagger from you and put you on the ground; also I can dislocate your arm. If you were to grip your right hand with your left hand, that would be the counter to me, and I would have to release you.
- From the Master's two-handed hold, carry the arm up into the upper lock (ligadura soprana) — the text's only praise of it is that it "closes up well".
- Three finishes, at your choice: take the dagger, put him on the ground, or dislocate the arm.
- Counter, stated by the play itself: the locked man grips his own right hand with his own left. That brace holds the arm together, and the scholar must let go.
This is another upper lock (soprana ligadura), and it is very strong. I am quite certain of putting you on the ground, and I do to you whichever I please — dislocate your arm or break it. My counter is this: if you grip your right hand with your left hand, your hold will be good and mine will have failed.
- A second upper lock (soprana ligadura) from the same hold. The text distinguishes it from [Dagger 58] only by degree — "it is very strong".
- The throw is stated as certain; on top of it, choose dislocate or break — "whichever I please".
- Counter: the same as [Dagger 58] — grip your own right hand with your left, and "your hold will be good and mine will have failed."
Two locks, one counter, no stated difference in the mechanics. The pair reads as one lock the scribe or the painter has drawn twice.
When I made my Master's hold, I put my left hand under your right elbow, and with my right hand I at once seized you under the knee, in such a way that I can throw you to the ground, and you will not be able to make any counter against me.
- Begin from the Master's hold ([Dagger 56]) — "when I made my Master's hold".
- Put your left hand under his right elbow and lift.
- At once — the text insists on the tempo — reach down with your right hand and seize him under the knee.
- Elbow rising, knee lifted: he has nothing left to stand on, and goes down.
- Declared counter-proof: "you will not be able to make any counter against me."
Glossological analysis
- presa ([56], [61]) — a hold, not a cover. The Fourth Master is the first dagger Remedy named for what his hands seize rather than for how he crosses; the Ninth Master ([Dagger 100]) is the other, and says so explicitly by comparing his grip to this one.
- ligadura soprana / soprana ligadura ([58], [59]) — the upper lock. The two plates flip the word order with no change of sense: the phrase is formulaic, not two different techniques.
- The three locks — the section's lock system, fixed across the whole dagger: upper (here), middle (ligadura mezana, [Dagger 19]), and lower (ligadura de sotto, the strong key chiave forte, [Dagger 54]). The upper lock is the only one of the three that the text ever gives a counter for.
- "turn to the right side" / "turn my shoulders" ([56]) — the disarm is a body turn against the held arm. Fiore's dagger-takings are almost all rotations of this kind; the hands only supply the anchor.
- dislocate vs break ([58], [59]) — kept as alternatives at the scholar's choice, not as degrees of one accident: "I do to you whichever I please".
- the self-grip counter ([58], [59]) — gripping your own right hand with your own left. Not a grip on the opponent but a brace of your own structure; it is the only counter of its kind in the dagger, and both upper locks share it.
Manuscript comparison
- Who finishes at [56]. The Getty has the Master himself turn and take the dagger. The Pisani Dossi turns the same line over to someone else: "If I turn my shoulders to you and do not release your arm, in that way the first scholar gives you trouble" — pointing at [Dagger 57], the plate for which the Getty has no text at all. The Paris drops the turn entirely and keeps only the boast ("from above and from below I can wound you with the steel"). Three witnesses, three different owners of the finish.
- The prose owns both counters. [58] and [59] each state the self-grip counter; neither verse witness mentions it. The Pisani Dossi gives a broken head at [58] and a throw at [59] — outcomes, not answers. Read the verse alone and the Fourth Master's upper locks look unanswerable.
- [58]'s Latin follows the verse, not the prose. The Getty threatens the dagger, the ground, or the arm; the Paris threatens the head ("I will deal your head many hurts"), which is the Pisani Dossi's image, not the Getty's. Where prose and verse part, the Paris sides with the verse.
- Illustrations. [58] is the only plate on this folio carrying a Getty figure (14v-b), shown beside the Pisani Dossi's; [56], [59], and [61] are the Pisani Dossi's alone.
- Coverage. Getty, Pisani Dossi, and Paris all carry these four. Morgan has no dagger section whatsoever — the entire section is a three-witness tradition, and this is true of every folio below.