Getty 31v
Three plates that resolve into two identical endings: the staff-and-dagger Master's play finished ([13]), then a second Master with two staffs and a dagger ([14]) and his scholar finishing it ([15]). Both end with the dagger in the chest, and both are annotated the same unusual way — with the counter the loser failed to make, addressed to him after the fact.
This is the play of the Master who awaits those two with two spears. The Master has a dagger in his right hand, and in the left he holds the staff upright before him. He can make the play in this way, and I do it for him in his stead. But if this player had known how to deal well with this dagger thrust, he could well have escaped it: had he opened his hands apart on the spear, and with the remainder of the spear (l'avanzo dela lanza) that projects behind had covered beneath my dagger — that is, crossed (incrosado) — this would not have befallen him. And with his spear he could have ruined me, had he known how to make such a counter against me.
- The Master of [Spear-Other 11] completes his play: dagger in the right hand, staff held upright before him in the left.
- The speaker is not the Master but the scholar doing it in his stead (in so scambio).
- The dagger goes into the chest. That is the play; it takes one sentence.
- Then the plate turns around and instructs the man who just lost. The counter he did not make: - open the hands apart on the spear (largado le mane dela lanza) — widen the grip so the shaft becomes a lever; - with the remainder of the spear that projects behind the hands (l'avanzo dela lanza), cover beneath my dagger — that is, cross it (incrosado); - from that cross, "with his spear he could have ruined me."
- Fiore's verdict on the player: he did not know how.
The counter is made with the part of the shaft behind the hands — the same surplus the Boar's Tooth covers with at [Spear 7]. At this distance a spear is not a point; it is a two-ended lever, and the man holding it has forgotten the rear half.
The Getty's "in pe dritto denanzi defi" is slightly corrupt; read as "upright before himself" (in piè ritto denanzi de si).
This Master will make a defense with these two staffs against the spear in this way: when the one with the spear draws near him to strike, the Master with his right hand throws the staff at the head of the one with the spear; and immediately with that throw he goes with the other staff to the cover of the spear, and with his dagger he strikes him in the chest, according as is depicted hereafter.
- A second Master waits with two staffs and a dagger. (How three implements are held in two hands, the text does not say.)
- Wait for the spearman to draw near to strike — the play is timed to his approach, not to his thrust.
- Throw the right-hand staff at his head. The staff is expendable; it is a missile.
- In the same motion (subito cum quello trare), go with the other staff to the cover of the spear. The throw and the cover are one action — the staff leaves as the cover arrives.
- Dagger into the chest.
- The scholar's plate ([Spear-Other 15]) shows the finish.
In these three sections the throw is otherwise always the opponent's tactic — the swordsman at [Sword-Spear 1], the third companion at [Spear-Other 16]. [14] is the one plate where the Master throws, and he throws to buy the tempo his cover needs.
I do what the Master before has said. Had you known the counter, you would have hindered me in this way: by raising your hands with your spear beneath my dagger — in that way you could have ruined me. Take this, since you knew not what to do.
- The scholar executes what the Master of [Spear-Other 14] described: the dagger is in the chest.
- Again the plate instructs the loser. The counter he did not make: raise your hands with the spear beneath my dagger — lift the shaft up under the dagger arm.
- "In that way you could have ruined me."
- Fiore's closing taunt: "Take this, since you knew not what to do."
[13] and [15] are built identically — a finished dagger thrust, plus the counter the loser missed, told to him afterward. Fiore teaches the answer from inside the losing position, twice on one folio.
Glossological analysis
- l'avanzo dela lanza ([13]) — "the remainder of the spear that projects behind [the hands]". At [Spear 7] the same word names the part projecting ahead. Avanzo is simply the surplus of shaft beyond the grip; which end it means depends on where the hands are — which is exactly why widening the grip changes what the word points at.
- largado le mane ([13]) — "opened the hands apart" on the shaft. The precondition of the counter: a narrow grip has no lever, a wide one does.
- incrosado ([13]) — crossed; the glossary's incrosar, the longsword's word for the meeting of blades ([S2H 27]). Here it names a spear-shaft crossed under a dagger — the crossing concept carried out of the sword and into a mismatch it was never defined for.
- in so scambio ([13]) — "in his stead": the scholar standing in for his Master. The same formula at [Grappling 7], [Spear-Other 18], and [Spear-Other 19].
- impazo ([15]) — hindrance, encumbrance, not "impasse". "You would have hindered me" (averissi mi fatto impazo); the verse's "for the less hindrance" (per men impaço) means so as to be troubled the less. The word is Fiore's standard term for anything that gets in the way — [Spear 7]'s verse strikes "without any hindrance" (sença nessum impaço).
- guastare ([13], [15]) — to ruin, wreck — considerably stronger than its modern cognate guastare, "to spoil". Both counters end with it: "with his spear he could have ruined me."
- bastone ([14]) — the staff; here two of them, and one is thrown. The only plate in these sections where the Master's own weapon deliberately leaves his hand.
- denanzi defi ([13]) — corrupt in the Getty; see the comparison.
Manuscript comparison
- A corrupt phrase at [13]. The Getty reads "Lo magistro… in la'mancha tene lo'bastone in pe dritto. denanzi defi[!]" — the last two words are garbled. Read as denanzi de si, "before himself", giving "he holds the staff upright before him". Nothing arbitrates it: the Pisani Dossi's couplet names no staff position at all, and no other witness carries the sentence. The reading is a conjecture on a unique text. (Flagged in Spear vs Other Weapons translation.)
- The Morgan drops this folio entirely. [13], [14], and [15] have no Morgan text. The Morgan's five plays in this section are [11] and then [16]–[19]: it keeps the two Masters' opening statements and skips the plays that resolve them. Its condensed [11] already absorbed the dagger finish, so the Morgan has no need of a [13] — the omission looks deliberate rather than defective.
- The counters belong to the prose alone. Both [13] and [15] carry a counter, and both carry it only in the Getty. The Pisani Dossi's couplets say "with the dagger I strike you in the chest" and "the dagger I have set in your chest" and stop; the Paris at [15] does the same ("I plant this dagger beneath your very chest"). The pattern is the grappling folios' exactly: verse gives the outcome, prose gives the answer.
- And they are two different counters. [13]: open the hands and cover beneath the dagger with the rear of the shaft, crossing it. [15]: raise the hands with the spear beneath the dagger. Both pass under the dagger; only [13] specifies the widened grip and the rear half of the shaft. The Getty distinguishes them carefully — and is the only witness that records either.
- A Pisani Dossi slip at [14]. "L'un te traro, cum l'altro croviro[!]" — a metathesis for coveriro, "I will cover". The verse witness's own error; the Paris renders the sense correctly (reliquumque tenebo / Illo membra tegens — "the other I shall keep, covering my limbs with it").
- Illustrations. All three plates are the Pisani Dossi's (15a-b…d); the Getty's own 31v figures are not shown. The column flips at the fold exactly as it does in the Spear section — Getty-led on 31r, Pisani-Dossi-led on 31v.