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Pisani Dossi 15b (no Getty text)
The rule of the long spear
The section's header verse, carried only by the Pisani Dossi, with no prose counterpart and no illustration. It announces the six Masters of Getty 39r–40r and fixes the one rule they are all demonstrations of: the beat, made out of the way, in the same pace as the strike.
[1] Of the long spear and its six masters
No illustration in the collated manuscripts
No illustration · Text: Pisani Dossi 15b
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
The long spear that is used in hand:
the longer it is, the less deceit it holds.
Six masters stand in guard with it;
with a step and a beat they make their strike at once,
as many of the forehand side as of the backhand, for certain.
The beat is made out of the way (fora de strada), and not upward;
and the beat should take an arm's length of the spear (un braço in la lança);
and whoever does otherwise will make so much the more error.
Flow of actions
- The weapon is the long spear "used in hand" (la lança longa che se usa in mano) — carried and thrust, not couched and not thrown.
- Its first stated property is a liability, not a virtue: the longer it is, the less deceit it holds (quanto e piu longa tanto ha men ingano). Reach costs you deception.
- Six Masters will stand in guard with it — three of the forehand side ([Spear 2]–[Spear 4]), three of the backhand ([Spear 7]–[Spear 9]).
- All six do one and the same thing: with a step and a beat they make their strike at once — one action, not three.
- Two rules constrain the beat: - it is made out of the way (fora de strada) and not upward (non in erto) — you displace his shaft sideways off the line; you do not lift it; - it should take an arm's length of the spear (un braço in la lança) — a stated measure for how much shaft the beat engages. The verse does not say whose spear, nor from which end it is measured.
- The sanction: whoever does otherwise "will make so much the more error" (tanto piu fara falança).
This plate is doctrine, not technique — a rule-sheet issued before the first Master speaks. The six Masters that follow are its proof.
Note
This introductory verse exists only in the Pisani Dossi. The "six masters" are the three forehand guards [2]–[4] and the three backhand guards [7]–[9].
Glossological analysis
- lança longa ([1]) — the long spear, carried in the hand. The section's whole matchup is length against length, and every Master answers the long spear from a shorter weapon.
- ingano ([1]) — deceit, trickery, feint. The verse's opening claim is a rule about weapons, not a boast: reach and deception trade against one another. Nothing else in the section repeats it.
- rebater ([1]) — the beat: striking the incoming shaft out of line (the glossary's rebattere). It is the section's governing verb, but not its only defensive one — [Spear 3] and [Spear 7] also name the cover (coverta), and distinguish it from the beat.
- fora de strada ([1]) — "out of the way / off the road": stepping and beating laterally off the line of the attack. The most repeated phrase in the section, and the thing all six Masters share.
- in erto ([1]) — upward. Named only in order to be forbidden: the beat is lateral, never lifting.
- un braço in la lança ([1]) — "an arm's length in the spear": the verse's measure for the beat. Whether it measures the engagement on his shaft or the displacement of it, the text does not say.
- parte drita / parte riversa ([1]) — forehand side / backhand side; the axis on which the six Masters are split three and three, and the only structural division the section makes.
- passo ([1]) — the step, welded to the beat: "with a step and a beat they make their strike at once". One tempo, not a sequence — see Tactical grouping §2.
- falança ([1]) — error, failing (cf. fallire, to fail). The verse's only threatened consequence is not a wound but a mistake.
Manuscript comparison
- A verse kernel with no prose around it. [1] exists only in the Pisani Dossi — Getty, Morgan, and Paris carry nothing here. This inverts the corpus's usual relation (Manuscript comparison §4A, §6): normally the prose grew around the verse couplets, but here the kernel survives alone and the prose never grew.
- Eight lines where the Pisani Dossi normally gives two. Its habit is a two-line boast per play; this is a four-couplet rule-sheet. The verse witness reserves its length for structural announcements — it does the same again at [Spear 7], the backhand trio's collective header, and nowhere else in the section.
- The six-Master architecture is the verse's alone. No prose witness ever says "six Masters". The Getty gives "we are three Masters" at [Spear 2] and "we are three guards" at [Spear 7], and leaves the reader to add them. Only [1] states the whole plan.
- What [1] states as one rule, the prose distributes. "With a step and a beat they make their strike at once" reappears piecemeal in the Getty — "the step and the beat are made in one pace together with the strike" ([Spear 2]), "we step out of the way" ([Spear 7]), "in a single pace they make offense and defense" ([Spear 10]). The verse legislates; the prose demonstrates.
- No illustration. Wiktenauer carries no figure for [1]; the section's images begin with the Getty's 39r-a at [Spear 2].