Getty 15v
Three more scholars — an awaiting cover with crossed arms ([77]), a two-handed grip on the arm ([78]), and a disarm one scholar performs in another's place ([79]) — closed by a counter that is aimed at no single play but at the Master of the close play himself ([80]).
With crossed arms I await you without fear. Strike from below or from above, as you please — I care nothing about it, for in whatever way you strike at me you will be locked: either in the middle lock or in the lower one you will be shut fast. Though if I wished to make the hold that the Fourth King, Remedy [Master] of the dagger, makes with his plays, I would do you harm enough, and taking the dagger from you would not fail me.
- Wait with the arms crossed, "without fear". This is an awaiting cover; you do not initiate.
- Let him strike from below or from above, as he pleases — the crossing is indifferent to which.
- Whichever he picks, he ends locked: "either in the middle lock or in the lower one you will be shut fast." The two locks of [Dagger 75] again — but here his choice, not yours, selects which.
- Alternative: instead of locking him, make the Fourth Master's hold ([Dagger 56]) and take the dagger — "taking the dagger from you would not fail me."
As much doctrine as technique: the claim is that a crossed cover converts any dagger line into one of exactly two locks.
This hold suffices me, so that you cannot touch me with your dagger. The play that comes after me — that one I mean to do to you; and plenty of other plays I could do to you without any doubt. I leave the others aside, because this one is good for me, and very quick.
- Take his arm with both hands. The claim is minimal and complete: "you cannot touch me with your dagger."
- Then do the play that comes after — [Dagger 79], the next plate on the page.
- Fiore states, and declines, the alternatives: he could do "plenty of other plays… I leave the others aside, because this one is good for me, and very quick."
One of the few places Fiore gives his reason for teaching less rather than more: speed beats completeness.
This scholar who stands before me — this is his play, for I do this taking of the dagger (tore di daga) in his place: I bear his dagger straight down toward the ground, to take the dagger from him as is written above. And through the turn that I will make the dagger make, I will set its point in his chest without fail.
- Bookkeeping first: this play is not the speaker's. It belongs to the scholar standing before ([Dagger 78]), and the speaker performs it in his place.
- Bear his dagger straight down toward the ground.
- Take it from him — the taking of the dagger (tore di daga), "as is written above"; the technique is treated as already known.
- Through the turn you make the dagger make, set its point in his chest, "without fail."
So that this scholar cannot dislocate my arm, I hold it short and hooked (linzinado). And if I held it still more hooked, it would be better yet; for thus I make the counter to the King and Master of the close play (zogho stretto) of the dagger.
## 6th Master
- The scholar is working to dislocate your arm.
- Hold the arm short and hooked (linzinado) — bent in and kept close, so there is no straight limb left to lever against.
- More is better: "if I held it still more hooked, it would be better yet." The counter is a spectrum, not a position.
- Note what is being countered. Not a play — a person: "the King and Master of the close play (zogho stretto) of the dagger."
Getty only; no verse witness carries this plate. It belongs with [Dagger 88] and [Dagger 91], which likewise answer close play as a category rather than answering any particular play.
Glossological analysis
- linzinado ([80]) — hooked, crooked, bent in. The arm is not merely withdrawn but shaped, and the text treats the shape as a quantity ("still more hooked… better yet"). A rare word, and the only posture of a limb named as a defence anywhere in the dagger.
- zogho stretto ([80]) — the close play: stretto is narrow, constricted, at close measure, not "tight" in the modern sense of tense or difficult. [Dagger 7] declares the dagger "very fond of the close play"; this plate counters its Master, and [Dagger 88] and [Dagger 91] counter the thing itself.
- tore di daga ([79]) — the taking of the dagger, a named technique with its own citations ([Dagger 37], [Dagger 57]). Note the play does not re-teach it: "as is written above". By this point in the section the disarm is a primitive that other plays call.
- "the play that comes after me" / "the scholar before me" ([78], [79]) — Fiore navigating by position on the page, exactly as at [Dagger 68]. Plates are addressed as neighbours, not as numbers — which is why the modern plate numbering periodically contradicts the text's own directions.
- "either in the middle lock or in the lower one" ([77]) — the two locks of [Dagger 75], returning as an exhaustive pair. The claim is that a crossed cover has only these two exits. Note which lock is absent: the upper lock ([Dagger 58]) belongs to the Fourth Master's hold, not to any crossing.
- "I leave the others aside" ([78]) — an editorial choice stated inside the text, and justified — by speed. Fiore's silences are not always gaps; sometimes he tells you he is choosing one.
Manuscript comparison
- [80] is Getty-only. The counter to the Master of the close play — the folio's most consequential plate — has no Pisani Dossi couplet and no Paris verse. It is of a piece with the section's habit: the prose family carries the counters, and here it carries one that no verse witness even knows exists.
- [77]'s wiring is the Getty's alone, and there is no Paris for [77] at all. The Getty ends the play by offering the Fourth Master's hold as an alternative to the locks; the Pisani Dossi has only "you will lose the dagger through this crossing." The prose keeps the section connected to itself; the couplet keeps the plate self-contained.
- [79]: the families describe opposite halves of the same plate. The Getty gives the mechanism — bear the dagger down, take it, turn it, point in the chest. Both verses give the bookkeeping — this is not my play, it is the previous scholar's, and I am doing it because he did not. And the Latin sharpens the reproach: the Pisani Dossi says the scholar before "does not do his play", the Paris that he "did not know how to play" it. An editorial note becomes an accusation of incompetence.
- [78]: rare unanimity, on a plate where nobody explains anything. Getty: the hold suffices; do the next play. Pisani Dossi: "By your arm, which I hold with two hands, I will take the dagger". Paris: "since grappling I hold you with twin hands, I will snatch away your dagger, just as you deserve." Three witnesses, one claim, no mechanics from any of them.
- Illustrations. [77]–[79] are the Pisani Dossi's (11a-b, 11a-c, 11a-d). [80] is the Getty's own (15v-d) — necessarily so, since no other manuscript has the play.
- Coverage. Pisani Dossi carries [77]–[79]; Paris carries [78] and [79] but not [77]; [80] is Getty-only. Morgan, none.