Folio 1 / 13
Morgan 9r (no Getty text)
The rubric of the lance
The section's header rubric, in which the lance speaks for itself. The Getty has no text for it: this is the first of two pages where the Morgan, not the Getty, is our base — the reverse of the situation everywhere else in the book.
[1] The noble weapon called the Lance
No illustration in the collated manuscripts
No illustration · Text: Morgan 9r · Pisani Dossi 29a-a
Morgan · translation
Here begins the art of the noble weapon called the lance (lanza): to be the beginning of battle, on horseback and on foot, is its custom. And whoever beholds it with its beautiful, polished pennon becomes bewildered with great fear. And it makes great thrusts, dangerously strong ones, and with a single one it can deal death. And if in its first blow it does its duty, it will clear axe, sword, and dagger all out of the way (de impazo tute le cavara).
Flow of actions
- This plate is doctrine, not technique: the lance introduces itself and states its office.
- Its office is to begin the battle — mounted or on foot. It is the weapon of the first encounter, not of the melee.
- Its first asset is fear: the polished pennon is named as a weapon in itself, before any blow is struck.
- Its blow is the thrust, and one thrust is claimed to be enough to kill.
- The condition attached: if the first blow does its duty, the fight never reaches the shorter weapons — axe, sword, and dagger are cleared out of the way.
- The corollary, left unstated but structuring everything that follows: if the first blow fails, the shorter weapons are exactly where the fight goes — which is the path this section then walks, lance to sword to bare hands.
The section opens by naming the whole treatise's other weapons in reverse order of reach. It is the mirror of [Grappling 4], where the Iron Gate claims lance, poleaxe, sword, and dagger all draw on grappling.
Glossological analysis
- lanza — the lance: the mounted spear. Distinguished by use, not shape, from the lanza fought on foot in [Spear]; the rubric expressly claims both ("on horseback, and on foot").
- principio de bataglia — "the beginning of battle", the lance's stated office. This is a claim about when a weapon is used rather than how — the section's organizing idea, and the reason it runs lance → sword → hands.
- penone — the pennon, the flag at the lance-head. Named for its effect on the enemy's nerve rather than for any mechanical function.
- smarido / smarito — bewildered, dismayed; a loss of composure, not mere fright. The one psychological claim in the section.
- de impazo tute le cavara — "it will clear them all out of the way": impazo = hindrance/encumbrance (cf. modern impaccio), not "impasse". The lance does not defeat axe, sword, and dagger — it makes them never arrive.
- azza — poleaxe (not "hatchet"), as in [Axe]; here listed simply as one of the shorter weapons the lance forestalls.
Manuscript comparison
- Coverage inverted. The Getty — our base everywhere else — has no text at all for this rubric; the Morgan carries it, and the Pisani Dossi carries the verse. This is the first sign of the fact that governs the whole section: Morgan is at its fullest here, with 30 of the 32 plays, against 30 in the Getty and 31 in the Pisani Dossi (Manuscript comparison §2). In the mounted material the Morgan is not the defective witness it is elsewhere (Manuscript comparison §4C) — it is a supplying one.
- Prose and verse are the same text here. The Morgan's prose is a six-line couplet sequence with the line-breaks removed: "…de grande paura doventa smarido. E la fa grande punte, e pericolose forte. E cum una sola po dar la morte". Set it beside the Pisani Dossi's "De grande paura deventa smarito… E se alo principio el mio debito faço / Azça spada e daga io cavo de impaço" and the rhymes survive intact in the prose. This page is the clearest single specimen in the section of the phenomenon argued at Manuscript comparison §6: the prose grew around the verse, and here it has barely grown at all.
- Person. The Pisani Dossi's lance speaks in the first person ("I am the noble weapon"); the Morgan reports it in the third ("Here begins the art of the noble weapon called the lance… it makes great thrusts"). The Morgan converts a speaking weapon into a rubric — the one substantive change it makes.
- Placement. In the Morgan this rubric stands at 9r, i.e. after the lance plays it announces (3r–5r). The mounted material sits at the front of the Morgan codex (2v–9r) and at the back of the Getty (41r–47r) and Pisani Dossi (29a–36b); see the closing note to the folio summary below.
- No illustration. Neither witness gives this rubric a plate; there is nothing to depict.