Getty 8r
The face-and-eyes cluster: the section closes on a chain of hands-in-the-face plays and their counters.
Because you have seized me with your arms beneath mine, I plant both my hands in your face. And even if you were well armored, with this play I would be let go. The counter of this play is this: if the scholar who is being injured in the face by the player sets his right hand under the player's elbow — that of the left arm — and pushes it hard, the scholar will remain at his liberty.
- He has seized you with his arms beneath yours (an under-hook body grip).
- Because your arms are free above his, plant both hands in his face.
- The pain forces him to release — Fiore claims this works even against an armored man.
- Counter: set your right hand under his left elbow and push hard — that breaks the face-press and frees you.
In the Getty's counter the role labels switch: the man whose face is being struck is there called the scholar, and the striker the player.
I make the counter of the thirteenth play [Grappling 18]: his hands are parted from my face, and by the way I have taken him and hold him, if he does not go to the ground I will take great offense.
- His hands are in your face ([Grappling 18]).
- Part his hands from your face (by the elbow-push named in [18]'s counter).
- Seize him in the resulting position and hold him.
- Put him on the ground.
Fiore counts the plays from [Grappling 6] as the first; the thirteenth is thus [Grappling 18], the hands-in-the-face play that this counters.
If you seize someone with both your arms from below, go with your hands to his face, as you see that I do — and all the more if his face is uncovered. Also, you can come into the third play of grappling [Grappling 8].
- You have seized him with both arms from below.
- From that grip, go with your hands to his face — the more so if his face is uncovered (no visor).
- Either drive him back and down from the face (the verse specifies beneath the chin, throwing him onto his back),
- or convert into the third play of grappling ([Grappling 8]).
The Paris reads contingam ("I touch"), evidently for contingas ("you touch"); translated accordingly.
I am the counter of the fourteenth play, and of everyone who puts his hands in my face in the matter of grappling (in fatto d'abrazare). I put my thumbs (dedi polisi) into his eyes, if I find his face uncovered; and if his face is covered, I give a turn to his elbow, or at once I make a hold (presa) or a lock (ligadura).
- Someone — anyone — has put his hands in your face.
- If his face is uncovered: drive both thumbs into his eyes.
- If his face is covered (armored/visored, so the eyes are unreachable): turn his elbow instead,
- or immediately take a hold (presa) or a lock (ligadura).
Note the conditional structure: Fiore branches the counter on whether the target is armored — the same armored/unarmored reweighting that governs the whole treatise (Tactical grouping §10).
The Getty says "counter of the fourteenth play" (·ⅩⅢⅠ·); by the count used in [Grappling 19] the fourteenth would be [Grappling 19] itself, while the text ("anyone who puts his hands in my face") answers the face-thrusts of [Grappling 18] and [Grappling 20]. The ordinal is likely a slip for the fifteenth, [Grappling 20], which immediately precedes.
Glossological analysis
- dedi polisi ([21]) — the thumbs (plural of dedo poles, cf. [13]). The section's two pressure-point plays use the same word, binding [13] and [21] as a pair.
- in fatto d'abrazare ([21]) — "in the matter of grappling", i.e. within the grappling game. The phrase generalizes the counter beyond the specific preceding play — it answers everyone who does this.
- presa / ligadura — recurring as the fallback pair once more ([21]); the section ends as it began, on the primacy of the advantageous hold.
- scoperto / covered vs uncovered face ([20], [21]) — the operative condition. "Uncovered" means unvisored; the plays branch on it.
- scolaro / zugadore ([18]) — see the comparison below: the Getty's counter at [18] uses these role-labels in a way that inverts their normal sense.
Manuscript comparison
- A role-label slip in the Getty at [18]. In the Getty's counter, the man being struck in the face is called the scholar and the striker the player — the reverse of the roles as the play itself sets them up (the speaker planting his hands is the one acting). The verse witnesses avoid the problem by not naming roles at all. (Flagged in Grappling translation.)
- A numbering slip in the Getty at [21]. The Getty calls this "the counter of the fourteenth play" (·ⅩⅢⅠ·). By the count the text itself uses (the plays run from [Grappling 6] as the first), the fourteenth is [Grappling 19] — which is itself a counter, not a face-attack. The text's own description ("everyone who puts his hands in my face") answers [Grappling 18] and [Grappling 20]; the ordinal is most likely a slip for the fifteenth, [Grappling 20], which stands immediately before. The verse witnesses carry no ordinal and so cannot arbitrate.
- A Latin scribal error at [20]. The Paris reads contingam ("I touch") where the sense plainly requires contingas ("you touch") — the loser, not the speaker, hits the ground. Translated to the sense.
- Prose supplies the counters again. As on 7v, the counters at [18] and [21] exist only in the Getty; the couplets give the taunt. The verse family's grappling is a gallery of outcomes; the prose family's is a system of answers.
- Illustrations. [21] is the Getty's own plate (8r-d) — the last of the three Getty figures in this section; [18]–[20] are the Pisani Dossi's (5b-a…c).
- Coverage. Getty, Pisani Dossi, Paris carry all four; Morgan none.