Morgan 6r (no Getty text)
The second page the Morgan alone supplies, and the most doctrinally valuable text in the section: two Masters crossed on horseback with no advantage either way, and a general statement of how long one may stay at a crossing. It stands between the Long Tail's guards and the Long Tail's plays because it defines the moment those plays begin from.
These two Masters are here crossed at the full sword (a tuta spada). And what one can do, the other can do — that is, each can do all the plays of the sword from the crossing (incrosar). But the crossing is of three kinds: at the full sword, [at the half sword,] and at the point of the sword. And whoever is crossed at the full sword can stay there a little; and whoever is crossed at the half sword can stay less; and whoever [is crossed] at the point of the sword can stay not at all. So the sword has in itself three things: a little, less, and nothing (pocho, meno, e niente).
- This plate is doctrine, not a technique: two Masters are crossed at the full sword and the text explains what that means rather than what to do about it.
- The position is symmetrical: what one can do, the other can do. Every sword play flows from the crossing, and both men have all of them.
- The crossing has three kinds, by where on the blade it is made: at the full sword, at the half sword, and at the point.
- Each kind allows a different dwell time: - crossed at the full sword — you may stay a little; - crossed at the half sword — you may stay less; - crossed at the point — you may stay not at all.
- Hence the formula: the sword has in itself three things — a little, less, and nothing (pocho, meno, e niente). The nearer the crossing comes to the points, the less time exists in it.
- Who wins an even crossing: since neither position decides, the verse hands it to the man with more art and cunning — he is the one who begins.
The rule is the mounted statement of the principle that organizes the whole longsword: where you cross determines which family of plays is available (Glossary, "crossing"; Tactical grouping §3). It reaches us only through the Morgan.
the Morgan's list names only two of the three crossings (a tuta spada, e punta de spada), evidently dropping "at the half sword" by a scribal slip — the sentence that follows describes all three; supplied in brackets.
Glossological analysis
- incrosar / incrosadi ([14]) — the crossing, the meeting of the blades; the event from which every sword play in the book proceeds ([S2H 27], [S2H 29]). Cf. [Mounted 11], where a lancer's whole purpose is to prevent one.
- a tuta spada ([14]) — "at the full sword": crossed near the weak/point-end with the arms extended, the widest crossing. Contrasted with a meza spada (half sword) and punta de spada (at the point).
- pocho, meno, e niente ([14]) — "a little, less, and nothing": the dwell-times of the three crossings. A mnemonic, and the section's one abstract formula.
- zoghi de spada cum lo incrosar ([14]) — "the plays of the sword from the crossing". The crossing is not a defensive result but a generative position — Fiore's plays are indexed to it.
- ingualivo (PD, [14]) — even, equal: a crossing in which neither man has the advantage. The Getty's absence deprives us of a prose gloss on this term.
- arte e malicie (PD, [14]) — "art and cunning". Malicia is guile/craft, not "malice" in the moral sense — the same faculty the Forehead Guard calls inzegno at [Grappling 5]. In an even crossing, skill breaks the tie.
Manuscript comparison
- The Getty does not have this page. For the second time in the section ([Mounted 1] was the first), the Morgan is our base text — and here what it supplies is not a rubric but doctrine found nowhere else in the mounted material. On the section's most quotable rule, the fullest witness in the corpus (Manuscript comparison §2) is silent and the "defective" one speaks.
- A scribal slip in the Morgan, self-evident from its own next sentence. Its list of the three crossings names only two: "lo incrosar si e de tre rasone, zoe a tuta spada, e punta de spada" — "the crossing is of three kinds, that is: at the full sword, and at the point of the sword". The sentence that immediately follows then distinguishes all three, half sword included ("chi e incrosado a meza spada meno gle po stare"). The scribe's eye skipped the middle item; our translation supplies [at the half sword] in brackets. (Flagged in Mounted Fencing translation.)
- The verse keeps the situation and discards the rule. The Pisani Dossi's couplet gives only the even crossing and the tiebreak ("let him who has more art and cunning begin") — no three kinds, no dwell-times, no formula. Had the Morgan not survived, the pocho, meno, e niente rule would be lost from this section entirely.
- The Paris has nothing here, so the Latin verse skips from [12] to [15] — from the Long Tail guard straight to its first play, with no crossing-doctrine between.
- Illustration. The single plate shown is the Pisani Dossi's (32a-b); the Morgan's own 6r-b figure, which its text describes, is not the one reproduced.