Getty 7r
Pain-compliance and lifting holds, with the folio's own counter embedded at [11].
With this hold that I have with my right hand at your throat, I make you bear ache and pain, and because of it you will go to the ground. Again I say that if I grip you with my left hand under your left knee, I will be more certain of sending you to the ground.
- Set your right hand at his throat and drive.
- The pain alone bends him toward the ground.
- To make it certain: grip under his left knee with your left hand — upper body driven back, lower leg lifted, so he has nothing to stand on.
I am the counter of the fifth play [Grappling 10] immediately before. And I say that if with my right hand I lift his arm — the arm of the hand that troubles me at the face — I will make him give such a turn that I will put him to the ground, in the way you see depicted here; or else I will gain a hold (presa) or a lock (ligadura), and of your grappling I will take little care.
- He has his hand at your throat/face ([Grappling 10]).
- With your right hand, lift the offending arm — take the pressure off by raising it, not by pulling it away.
- That lift turns him; carry the turn through and put him down.
- Or, instead of the throw, convert the same lift into a hold (presa) or a lock (ligadura).
The Getty text here is the counter to [Grappling 10]; the Pisani Dossi and Paris verses instead speak from the perspective of the man whose hands are on the face, who abandons that to seek other holds.
Through the hold that I have gained, in the way that I hold you, I will lift you off the ground by my strength, and I will put you beneath my feet — first with the head, before the torso — and you will make no counter against me that is any good (che sia justo).
- From the hold already gained, with your head set beneath his arm (per the verse).
- Lift him clear off the ground by main strength.
- Drive him down head first, before the torso, and put him under your feet.
- Fiore's claim: from here no counter is any good — one of the few plays declared counter-proof.
I hold my thumb (dedo poles) beneath your ear, and you feel such ache from it that you will go to the ground without a doubt; or else I will make another hold on you, or a lock (ligadura) that will be fiercer than torture. The counter that the sixth play [Grappling 11] makes against the fifth [Grappling 10] — the one where you put the hand under the elbow — that same counter can be made against me without any doubt.
- Drive your thumb beneath his ear — a pressure point, not a strike.
- The pain sends him to the ground.
- Or convert to another hold, or to a lock "fiercer than torture".
- Counter, stated by the play itself: the same counter as [Grappling 11] — get the hand under the elbow and lift.
Glossological analysis
- dedo poles ([13]) — the thumb (Lat. pollex), not a generic finger. Note the Pisani Dossi's verse says only "the finger" (deo); the Getty is anatomically precise where the verse is loose.
- presa vs ligadura ([11], [13]) — the folio repeatedly offers the pair as alternatives to the throw: if the takedown is not there, take a hold or a lock instead. This "convert rather than abandon" habit is the tactical signature of the section.
- contrario ([11]) — counter. This is the first counter in the section, and it is self-declared ("I am the counter of the fifth play"), the standard Fiorean device.
- che sia justo ([12]) — "that is any good / that is sound"; justo here is valid/effective, not "just" in the moral sense. A translator's trap the text avoids.
- a mi e pocha briga — the idiom family behind [13]'s "fiercer than torture" register: briga = trouble, not "brigade".
Manuscript comparison
- A genuine reversal of voice at [11]. The Getty speaks as the counter-er: "I am the counter of the fifth play… I lift his arm… I put him to the ground." The Pisani Dossi and Paris speak as the opposite man — the one whose hands are on the face, who is abandoning that hold to show other holds. The same plate is narrated from opposite sides in the two families. (Flagged in Grappling translation.)
- Precision vs looseness at [13]. Getty: the thumb (dedo poles) beneath the ear, plus a full statement of the counter. Pisani Dossi: "the finger beneath your left ear", and instead of a counter it observes that the opponent's hold is failing. The prose carries the technical apparatus; the verse carries the image.
- The Getty's own plates appear here. [11] and [12] are illustrated from the Getty (7r-b, 7r-c) — two of only three Getty images in this section. [12] shows both the Getty and the Pisani Dossi figures, allowing a direct visual comparison of the two traditions rendering the same lift.
- Paris expansion. At [11] the Latin runs to three lines where the Pisani Dossi has two, adding the motive ("gladly I moved them thence, that I might drag you down by other holds"). The Paris is not a line-for-line Latinization; it paraphrases and expands where the metre allows.
- Coverage. Getty, Pisani Dossi, Paris all carry all four; Morgan none.