Folio 12 / 31
Pisani Dossi 8b (no Getty text)
The Third Master's opening, as the verse gives it
Three plates the Getty does not have, from the Pisani Dossi's Third-Master page (8b carries six, [Dagger 45]–[Dagger 50]). Two of them are the halves of what the Getty fuses into [Dagger 47]; the third is a scholar's play the prose family simply lacks.
[45] The Backhand Plays Begin
Pisani Dossi · 08b-a
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 08b-a · Text: Pisani Dossi 8b-a
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
Here begin the plays of the backhand (man riverssa), strong plays;
for not knowing such plays, many have died.
And my scholars will follow the plays,
and they too will begin from the backhand side.
Flow of actions
- Doctrine, not a play: the Third Master's own announcement.
- The backhand plays begin here, and they are strong plays (zoghi forti).
- Why they matter: many have died for not knowing them. The threat is not what the plays do but what ignorance of them costs.
- The family's structure: his scholars will follow, and they too begin from the backhand side.
- No cover, no hand, no grip. The Getty's version of this announcement replaces the last line with the right-hand cover ([Dagger 47]).
Four lines where the Pisani Dossi normally gives two. It expands for Masters — [Dagger 17], [Dagger 41], here — and, once, for a name ([Dagger 54]).
Note
In the Getty, the Third Master's introduction and his first play are combined under [47]; the Pisani Dossi gives the introduction separately here.
[46] Dagger Gained by the Master's Play
Pisani Dossi · 08b-b
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 08b-b · Text: Pisani Dossi 8b-b
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
By the Master's play I have gained the dagger,
and in striking you I will deal you a great bargain (derada).
Flow of actions
- The Third Master's first scholar, and his claim is complete in one line: the dagger is gained, by the Master's play.
- The credit is the Master's, not his — the same deference as [Dagger 49].
- Then he strikes with it, and calls what he is dealing out a great bargain (derada) — ironic, in the section's stock manner.
- Nothing else: no grip, no hand, no target.
This is the plate the Getty does not have, and its absence changes the shape of the family. In the Getty the Third Master goes straight from the cover to the throw ([Dagger 47]–[Dagger 48]); the verse family puts a disarm between them.
[50] Dislocation and Disarm
Pisani Dossi · 08b-f
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 08b-f · Text: Pisani Dossi 8b-f
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
To dislocate your arm is no effort for me,
and I can take the dagger from you without trouble.
Flow of actions
- A scholar's play with no Getty counterpart, pairing two of [Dagger 8]'s five things: dislocate the arm, and take the dagger.
- Both are rated as costing nothing — non n'o fadiga, senca briga: no effort, no trouble.
- No grip and no entry is given. Standing last on the Pisani Dossi's page, after the dislocation at [Dagger 49], it reads as that plate's continuation — but the couplet does not say so.
Compare [Dagger 51] on the next Getty folio, which makes the identical pair of claims in prose — dislocate, take the dagger, both free — and adds that the grip has neither counter nor defense.
Glossological analysis
- man riverssa ([45]) — the backhand, here as the name of a family: "here begin the plays of the backhand". The Pisani Dossi doubles the s; the Getty's spelling is man riversa ([Dagger 47]).
- zoghi forti ([45]) — "strong plays". A rating the Getty's parallel text drops, substituting the observation that countless men have died by them.
- derada ([46]) — a bargain, a quantity of goods dealt out: "I will deal you a great derada". The same sardonic figure as the grappling section's bon merchato ([Grappling 2], [Grappling 5]) — you are getting a fine deal, meaning you are getting the worst of it.
- fadiga / briga ([50]) — effort / trouble. Not "fatigue" as a state and not "brigade": both name the cost of doing something, and the pair is a stock rhyme the section reuses — at [Dagger 19] (briga / fadiga), here, and inside the Getty's own prose at [Dagger 51].
- dislogare ([50]) — to dislocate, paired here with the taking of the dagger and kept distinct from breaking throughout ([Dagger 43], [Dagger 59]).
- seguirano ([45]) — "will follow": what scholars do to a Master's plays. The verb stands identically in the Getty's fused text ([Dagger 47]) — one of the two lines the families share word for word.
Manuscript comparison
- Six against four. The Pisani Dossi lays out six plates to a page throughout the dagger — 6a, 6b, 7a, 7b, 8a and 8b all carry six — while the Getty runs four to a folio from 10r onward. The two manuscripts' pages therefore cannot align, and this file's Pisani-Dossi-only pages are what falls out of the difference: 8b holds [Dagger 45]–[Dagger 50], of which the Getty has three.
- [45] and [46] are one Getty plate — but not quite. The Getty fuses the Third Master's announcement with his first play at [Dagger 47] (Note at [45], Dagger translation). What it actually fuses [45] with is the throw; [46], the disarm, it drops altogether. The verse family's Third Master takes the dagger before he throws; the Getty's goes cover → throw with nothing in between.
- [50] has no Paris either. The Paris's Third Master runs [47] (22r-c), [48] (22v-a), [49] (22v-c) and then jumps to [51] at 31r-a, so [50] is Pisani Dossi alone — like [Dagger 26] and [Dagger 27]. Across [Dagger 1]–[Dagger 55], six plates are the Pisani Dossi's alone ([26], [27], [45], [46], [50], [53]) and fourteen are the Getty's alone ([1]–[12], [23], [24]). The prose and verse families each hold material the other never had.
- No base text. As on 8a, these three plates have no prose in any witness; the couplet is the text rather than a witness against one.
- Illustrations. All three are the Pisani Dossi's (08b-a, 08b-b, 08b-f). Coverage: Pisani Dossi three; Getty, Paris, Morgan none.