Folio 14 / 31
Pisani Dossi 9a (no Getty text)
The dagger turned over the left arm
One plate, from the Pisani Dossi alone: a disarm that turns the dagger back over the speaker's left arm and finishes at once in the lower key. On the Pisani Dossi's page it sits between [Dagger 52] and [Dagger 54] — that is, between the Getty's fifth and sixth plays of the Third Master — and the Getty has no room for it.
[53] Dagger Turned Over the Left Arm
Pisani Dossi · 09a-c
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 09a-c · Text: Pisani Dossi 9a-c
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
I will turn your dagger back over my left arm,
and at once in the lower key (chiave de soto) I will make trouble for you.
Flow of actions
- A disarm, described by its geometry and nothing else: turn his dagger back over your own left arm. The left arm is the fulcrum, as the elbow was at [Dagger 37] and the shoulder at [Dagger 35].
- Then, at once, into the lower key (chiave de soto) — the strong key of [Dagger 54], which stands next on the same page.
- And there you make trouble for him (impaço).
- That is the whole plate. No hand takes the dagger, no target is named, no counter is offered.
The couplet does the one thing the Getty's [Dagger 54] refuses to do: it names an entry into the strong key. The Getty fixes the lock's name and its worth and then says "as is seen in the painted figure"; the verse gives one line of how the arm gets there.
Glossological analysis
- chiave de soto ([53]) — the lower key: the lower lock / strong key of [Dagger 54]. The verse family prefers chiave where the Getty prefers ligadura — both words live in both, but the weighting differs, and the Getty names [54] with both ("the lower lock and the strong key").
- revoltara ([53]) — "I will turn back" (revoltare), an intensive of voltare ([Dagger 17], [Dagger 34], [Dagger 37]). The turn is the section's one universal mechanism; here it is reversed, and the dagger is turned back upon its owner.
- sopra mio mancho braço ([53]) — "over my left arm". Not the opponent's: the disarm is levered over the speaker's own limb, exactly as [Dagger 35] breaks the arm over the speaker's own left shoulder.
- impaço ([53]) — trouble, hindrance — the same word the middle lock uses of what it prevents ([Dagger 19]). What a lock does to you and what it stops you doing are the same noun.
Manuscript comparison
- A one-plate page, because the Getty's arithmetic leaves no room for it. [Dagger 53] sits on Pisani Dossi 9a between [Dagger 52] (9a-b) and [Dagger 54] (9a-d). The Getty's folio 14r runs a, b, c, d = [51], [52], [54], [55] — four figures, no gap. And the Getty's own cross-references confirm there was never a gap: they call [Dagger 54] "the sixth play of the Third Master" ([Dagger 75], [Dagger 97], [Dagger 98], [Dagger 103]), which only counts out if [53] is not among them.
- Pisani Dossi alone. No Getty, no Paris — the Paris runs 31r-c ([52]) straight to 31v-a ([54]). The plate is one witness deep, like [Dagger 26], [Dagger 27], [Dagger 45], [Dagger 46] and [Dagger 50].
- And it is the only plate here that says how the strong key is entered. [Dagger 51] and [Dagger 52] say the lock is available and costs nothing; [Dagger 54] names it and points at its picture. Only [Dagger 53] gives a mechanism — the dagger turned back over the left arm. Whatever else the prose family gained by not having this plate, what it lacks is the instruction.
- No base text. As on 8a and 8b, the couplet is the text.
- Illustration. The Pisani Dossi's (09a-c). Coverage: Pisani Dossi one; Getty, Paris, Morgan none.