Getty 18r
Four scholars of the Ninth Master, all starting from the one grip he made from below — and told apart by what each of them lets go of. Two end in the strong key ([103], [104]), one completes the disarm begun at [Dagger 101] ([102]), and one keeps the whole grip and walks behind the man ([105]).
This play that the scholar before me does — I make its completion, because with his grip, his play finishes here. Although his other scholars will make other plays from such a grip: look behind and you will see their methods.
- This scholar makes the completion of the play before him ([Dagger 101]): "with his grip, his play finishes here."
- No mechanics are given. The Getty says only that the previous scholar's play ends at this plate; the couplet says only that he "can take the dagger, and can do this play." What the completion consists of has to come from [Dagger 101] — turn the dagger up at the elbow, point to the face.
- Bookkeeping instead: the Master's other scholars make different plays from the same grip — "look behind and you will see their methods."
A plate that exists to close a play rather than to teach one. Note the two witnesses cannot agree whose scholar he is — see the comparison.
The Pisani Dossi assigns this play to the Master's first scholar; in the Getty it is the second scholar, completing the disarm begun in [Dagger 101].
The grip of my Master — I made a show (fatta vista) of it, and released my right hand from its grip, and so I have seized you under your right elbow, to dislocate your arm. And with such a grip I can also put you in a lock (ligadura), namely in the strong key (chiave forte), for the third King and Master governs these among his plays: in his sixth play [Dagger 54] are its methods.
- Make a show (fatta vista) of the Master's grip — offer it without meaning it.
- Release your right hand from that grip.
- With it, seize him under his right elbow.
- Dislocate the arm.
- Or put him in a lock (ligadura) — "namely in the strong key (chiave forte)", which belongs to the Third Master: "in his sixth play [Dagger 54] are its methods."
One of the section's few explicit feints. The Ninth Master's scholars work by giving away what the Master just took.
Through the grip of my Master I have come into this one. And from this grip I will make no pause until I put you into the lower lock (ligadura sottana), that is, into the strong key (chiave forte), which is little trouble for me — even though I could well have your dagger without any effort.
- Through the Master's grip, come into this one.
- Make no pause — the tempo is the instruction — until he is in the lower lock (ligadura sottana), "that is, into the strong key (chiave forte)".
- The verse supplies the action the prose leaves out: a half turn (meça volta) of his arm.
- It costs "little trouble" — "even though I could well have your dagger without any effort."
Neither witness has this play whole. The Getty gives the destination and the tempo and never says what you do; the Pisani Dossi gives the half turn and never says why. The play exists only across the manuscripts.
The grip of my Master I have not abandoned; rather, I at once entered under his right arm, to dislocate that [arm] with such a grip. Armored or unarmored, I would do this to him. And when I hold him from behind, in my power (in mia bailia), I will render him no courtesy, but do him harm.
- Do not abandon the Master's grip — this scholar is the one who gives up nothing.
- Enter under his right arm at once.
- Dislocate that arm with the grip you still hold.
- Armored or unarmored, the same play.
- You finish behind him, holding him in your power (in mia bailia) — and the text is explicit about what that means: "I will render him no courtesy, but do him harm." The verse says where from: behind his shoulders.
The Latin witness flatly contradicts this play's opening — see the comparison.
Where the Getty and Pisani Dossi insist the grip is kept ("I have not abandoned it"), the Latin says the opposite (capturamque etiam liqui — "I have even let the grip go"); probably a translator's slip in the Florius.
Glossological analysis
- "releasing my right hand" vs "not releasing the grip" ([102]–[105]; cf. [Dagger 101]) — the family's variable. The Ninth Master's scholars are told apart by what each one lets go of: the right hand ([Dagger 101], [103]), or nothing at all ([105]). The Master's grip is a starting capital, and each scholar spends it differently. Read as a set, these plates are a study in what a hand is worth once it has done its job.
- fatta vista ([103]) — "made a show of it": a feint. The grip is offered and not meant. Explicit feints are rare in the dagger, and it is fitting that the one here consists of pretending to hold on.
- in mia bailia ([105]) — in my power, in my custody (balia: authority, wardship). A legal word, not a physical one: the man is not merely held but at your disposal — which is what licenses the next clause, "I will render him no courtesy."
- impaço ([105], verse) — trouble, encumbrance (cf. impaccio), not "impact". The verse family's stock word for what you inflict, alongside briga.
- meça volta ([104], verse) — the half turn, and the mechanism the Getty's [104] omits altogether. Cf. [Dagger 83], where the same term turns a body rather than an arm.
- ligadura sottana = chiave forte ([103], [104]) — twice more, both with the address to [Dagger 54]. Two of this folio's four plays end in the strong key, and both take the trouble to cite where it is defined.
Manuscript comparison
- The witnesses disagree about who this scholar is. The Getty's [102] completes the play of "the scholar before me" — [Dagger 101] — making him the second scholar. The Pisani Dossi calls the man in the plate "the first scholar of this my Master." Both cannot be right, and the divergence is structural, not scribal: the Getty is counting a sequence, the Pisani Dossi is labelling a picture.
- [104] survives only across the witnesses. The Getty gives the destination (lower lock, strong key) and the tempo ("I will make no pause") and never says what you do. The Pisani Dossi gives the action — a half turn (meça volta) of the arm — and not the reason. The Paris follows the verse ("if perchance I can turn your arm"). No single manuscript contains the play.
- [105]: the Latin says the opposite of both Italian witnesses. Getty: "the grip of my Master I have not abandoned." Pisani Dossi: "Not releasing the grip, I passed under your arm." Paris: capturamque etiam liqui — "and I have even let the grip go." Since keeping the grip is precisely what distinguishes this scholar from [Dagger 101] and [Dagger 103], the Latin is very likely a translator's slip in the Florius — but it is a slip that inverts the play and erases the one contrast that gives the family its shape.
- All three witnesses put the strong key in the lower position. [103] and [104] both name the lower lock and gloss it as the strong key, citing the Third Master's sixth play. The Pisani Dossi agrees at both (chiave desoto; "in the lower lock your life will be taken from you"), and so does the Paris ("I can also bind you with the lower key"; "I prepare to take your life with the lower lock"). On this folio the three families are unanimous, in three languages.
- Illustrations and coverage. Three manuscripts furnish this folio: [102] shows the Pisani Dossi's figure (12b-c) beside the Paris's (37v-a) — one of the section's few Paris illustrations; [105] shows the Getty's own (18r-d) beside the Pisani Dossi's; [103] and [104] are the Pisani Dossi's alone. All three witnesses carry all four plays — the last folio in the section where that is true. Morgan, none.