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Pisani Dossi 10b (no Getty text)
The Fifth Master's release: fist or elbow
One more Fifth Master play with no Getty text — and the plainest statement anywhere of what that whole family actually does: strike the arm that holds you, at either end, and it lets go. Unusually for a Getty-less plate, both verse witnesses carry it.
[70] Strike to fist or elbow
Pisani Dossi · 10b-a
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 10b-a · Text: Pisani Dossi 10b-a · Paris 34r-d
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
I will strike near your fist, or upon the elbow;
I will dislocate you at that spot, and you will release me at once.
Flow of actions
- He has you by the collar — the Fifth Master's standing predicament.
- Strike the arm that holds you, at either end: near the fist, or on the elbow. The verse offers a choice, not a sequence.
- The joint dislocates at that spot — where you strike is where it breaks.
- He releases at once.
- The text stops there. No follow-up, no lock, no throw, no dagger. Where [Dagger 67] strikes the elbow and then goes hunting for the dagger, and [Dagger 69] strikes the wrist and adds a counter, this play states the bare principle and leaves it bare.
Glossological analysis
- "near your fist, or upon the elbow" ([70]) — the two ends of the holding arm, given as alternatives. This is why the Fifth Master has several plays that look like one: the family works by striking the arm somewhere, and the exact joint is negotiable. [Dagger 67] takes the elbow, [Dagger 69] the wrist; this verse simply names both and lets you pick.
- "at that spot" ([70]) — the dislocation happens where the blow lands, not somewhere downstream. Fiore's arm-breaking is local: the strike and the injury are one event, which is what distinguishes this family from the locks, where the damage is remote from the grip.
- "you will release me at once" ([70]) — the Fifth Master's entire measure of success. Every play in the family is scored on one question: does the grip come off? The dagger, the throw, and the lock are all downstream of that.
- "my chest" (Paris, [70]) — the Latin's word for the grip point, and not the Italian witnesses' word. See the comparison below: the Florius disagrees consistently, not accidentally.
Manuscript comparison
- No Getty, but two verse witnesses. [70] has no Getty prose, yet both the Pisani Dossi (10b-a) and the Paris (34r-d) carry it — rare among the section's Getty-less plays, which are otherwise Pisani Dossi singletons ([Dagger 57], [Dagger 60], [Dagger 64], [Dagger 68]).
- The two verses agree closely, down to the pairing of targets: Pisani Dossi "near your fist, or upon the elbow"; Paris "either above the elbow or close by the fist". The Latin reverses the order and adds its habitual insult ("wretch"), and otherwise says the same thing.
- The Paris says chest where the Italians say collar — and does it twice. Here: "then you will quit my chest". At [Dagger 66]: "You seize me by the chest". Both Italian witnesses say the collar (cavezzo / caveço) at [Dagger 66]. Twice is not a scribal slip: the Florius's translator understood the Fifth Master's predicament as a grab at the body, not at the garment — and Fiore's proverb, that a grip on the collar hinders no defense, does not survive that reading. It is the clearest doctrinal divergence in the Fifth Master's material.
- Illustration. The figure shown is the Pisani Dossi's (10b-a).