Getty 15r
Two plays finish the Fifth Master's collar-grip family with a shoulder-break ([73]) and a throw ([74]). Then the page turns to what is arguably the section's routing table: a single cover ([75]) that arrives at the middle lock or at the lower lock and strong key depending only on whether it is made above or below the hands — and [76], which walks it into the strong key.
This player was holding me by the collar, and at once, before he could strike with the dagger, with both my hands I seized his left hand, and I threw his left arm over my right [shoulder] to dislocate the said arm — and indeed it is altogether dislocated. This I would do more safely armored than unarmored.
- The player has you by the collar; the dagger has not yet come.
- Before he can strike, seize his left hand with both of your hands.
- Throw his left arm over your right shoulder.
- The arm dislocates. Note the tense: this is not a threat but a report — "and indeed it is altogether dislocated."
- Kit note: "This I would do more safely armored than unarmored."
In this way I will hurl you to the ground — it cannot fail me — and I will take your dagger, and that is no lie. If you are armored, it can do you this much good: with that very dagger I will take your life. If we are both armored, my art has not failed. Though if a man is unarmored and is very quick, he can do plenty of the other plays, and this one as well.
- From the same hold on the collar-gripping arm, hurl him to the ground — declared unfailing.
- Take his dagger.
- If he is armored: the throw still lands, and the dagger you have just taken is the answer to the armor — "with that very dagger I will take your life." Armor changes the tool, not the outcome.
- If both of you are armored: "my art has not failed."
- A closing concession: an unarmored man who is very quick "can do plenty of the other plays, and this one as well." The text does not say which of the two men it means.
Fiore's armor branching normally reweights a play. Here it only reweights the finish — the throw is indifferent to kit, and only the killing changes.
The Getty's "lo te pora zovare" reads literally "it will be able to avail you"; since the sentence continues "for with that very dagger I will take your life," the sense wants either irony or a dropped negative ("it will avail you little"). The translation keeps the ironic reading.
This cover is very good in armor and without armor, and against any strong man; it is as good for covering below the hands as above. And this play enters into the middle lock (ligadura mezana), that is, into the third play of the First King and Remedy [Master] of the dagger. And if the said cover is made below the hands, the scholar puts the player into the lower lock (ligadura de sotto), that is, into the strong key (chiave forte) which is under the Third King and Remedy [Master] — the one who plays on the backhand side — at the sixth play.
- Make the cover. The text praises it on three axes at once: good in armor and without, good against any strong man, and good below the hands as well as above.
- Made above the hands (the unmarked case), the play runs into the middle lock (ligadura mezana) — and Fiore gives its address: "the third play of the First King and Remedy of the dagger", i.e. [Dagger 19].
- Made below the hands, the same cover runs instead into the lower lock (ligadura de sotto) — "that is, into the strong key (chiave forte)" — which belongs to the Third Master, the one who plays on the backhand side, "at the sixth play": [Dagger 54].
One cover, two heights, two locks. This is the section's routing table, and it is worth being exact about where it routes: the strong key is the lower lock, not the middle one. Fiore fixes that identity at [Dagger 54] and never once wavers.
If I can turn this arm, I do not doubt that I will make you enter into the lower lock and strong key (ligadura de sotto e chiave forte) — though being armored, it could be done more safely. I could also do something else against you: if I keep my left hand firm and with my right seize your left leg below the knee, strength does not fail me to put you on the ground.
- If you can turn this arm — the whole play hangs on that one condition.
- He enters the lower lock and strong key (ligadura de sotto e chiave forte). No hedge: "I do not doubt".
- Kit note again: "being armored, it could be done more safely."
- Alternative from the same position: keep your left hand firm, and with your right seize his left leg below the knee — "strength does not fail me to put you on the ground."
The turn goes to a lock; the leg goes to the ground. Same hands, two destinations — exactly the offer the Fourth Master made at [Dagger 61].
Glossological analysis
- chiave forte = ligadura de sotto ([75], [76]) — the strong key is the lower lock. Fiore fixes the identity at [Dagger 54] ("This is called the lower lock and the strong key") and then never varies it: [75], [76], [Dagger 97], [Dagger 98], [Dagger 103], and [Dagger 104] each gloss one term with the other. It is emphatically not the middle lock, which is a different lock at a different address. The verse family's sotana chiave / chiave de soto is the same thing again.
- ligadura mezana / chiave mezana ([75]) — the middle lock, the First Master's third play ([Dagger 19]). Note that ligadura and chiave are freely interchangeable across the section: the prose family prefers ligadura, the verse family chiave, and nothing turns on the choice.
- "below the hands" / "above the hands" ([75]) — the operative variable, and not what it first looks like. It means not high or low on the body but which side of the hands the cover is made on. That single switch decides which lock you arrive at; it is the most explicit branch condition in the section.
- addressing plays by Master and ordinal ([75], [76]) — Fiore's citation system: "the sixth play of the Third King and Remedy, the one who plays on the backhand side". Plays have addresses, not numbers. This matters textually: the addresses stay stable even where the manuscripts' page orders do not (cf. [Dagger 64], [Dagger 68]).
- "more safely armored than unarmored" ([73], [74], [76]) — three times on one folio. The Fifth Master's material is the section's most armor-conscious, and its formula is consistent: armor does not change what the play is, only how safely you can afford to do it.
- volta — the turn ([76]) — "if I can turn this arm". As at [Dagger 56] and [Dagger 62], the turn is the engine and the hands are only the anchor. Here it turns an arm into a lock rather than a dagger out of a hand; the mechanism is the same one.
Manuscript comparison
- The Getty owns the entire routing apparatus at [75]. The cross-references — middle lock = the First Master's third play; lower lock = strong key = the Third Master's sixth play — exist only in the Getty prose. The Pisani Dossi offers "To take your dagger I make such a cover, and with plenty of other plays I will give you trouble"; the Paris says much the same. Both verse witnesses know the cover takes daggers. Neither knows what it is for.
- [76] is where the verse does carry the lock. Both verses name the destination outright: Pisani Dossi, "I will make you enter into the lower key (sotana chiave)"; Paris, "I will quickly make you sink into the lower key". Set against [75], where they name nothing, this confirms that the verse family carries the lock-vocabulary sporadically rather than systematically — the same pattern noted at [Grappling 7].
- A crux at [74]. "If you are armored, it can do you this much good" renders lo te pora zovare, literally "it will be able to avail you" — immediately followed by "with that very dagger I will take your life." Either the sentence is ironic or a negative has dropped out of the exemplar. The verse witnesses cannot arbitrate: both describe only the throw.
- All three witnesses agree on the handedness at [73] — his left arm, over the scholar's right shoulder. That is worth flagging twice over. First, the Getty's word "shoulder" is an editorial supply, and the Pisani Dossi's verse secures it by saying it outright. Second, [Dagger 35] — recognisably the same technique in the First Master's material — breaks the arm over the left shoulder instead. The witnesses agree with each other here and the section disagrees with itself.
- Illustrations. All four figures are the Pisani Dossi's (10b-d, 10b-e, 10b-f, 11a-a). No Getty plate appears on this folio.
- Coverage. Getty, Pisani Dossi, and Paris all carry all four. Morgan, none.