Morgan 11v (no Getty text)
The Morgan's own close sequence: [22] announces two plays, [23] and [24] perform them, and [25] closes the Remedy family with a counter. The Getty has none of it — its own pommel material sits back at [SwordArmor 16]–[SwordArmor 18] — and at two of these four plates the verse witnesses describe different plays altogether.
What the scholar before me says does not fail: I can do to you these two plays that stand behind me. That is, the first: striking with the pommel in the face, and slamming you to the ground. The other that follows, which is the second, can be done by advancing the right foot and the grip (mantenir) of the sword, and with that striking him in the ear and in the cheek — in such a way he will go to the ground without doubt.
- The scholar before you is right ([SwordArmor 21]), and his play can be carried to two conclusions — the two figures standing behind you.
- The first: strike with the pommel in the face and slam him to the ground. That is [SwordArmor 23].
- The second: advance the right foot, bring up the grip (mantenir) of the sword, and strike him with it in the ear and the cheek. That is [SwordArmor 24]; he goes down "without doubt".
- This plate performs nothing of its own. It is an announcement of the two that follow — a table of contents standing inside the sequence.
- The verse witnesses read the same plate as a third thing entirely: striking the hands to win the lock. See the comparison.
the Morgan speaks of the pommel strikes that follow; the Pisani Dossi and Paris verses speak of striking the hand to reach the lock.
The scholar who stands before the Master is well instructed: with the pommel I strike you in the face, and I will slam you backward to the ground, in such a way that neither mail coat (pancirone) nor skullcap (cervilera) will avail you.
- Strike him in the face with the pommel.
- Slam him backward to the ground — the direction is specified (riverso), onto his back.
- The claim, and the reason the plate belongs to the armored section: neither mail coat (pancirone) nor skullcap (cervilera) will avail him. Fiore names the two pieces that would ordinarily answer a blow to the head and the body, and says they are beside the point here.
This play I have not failed: as the second scholar before me said, I could come to this play in which I strike you in the ear and in the cheek. Of sending you to the ground I hold myself certain: you will go to the flat, and I will stay upright.
- This is the second of the two plays [SwordArmor 22] promised, and the speaker says so: "as the second scholar before me said, I could come to this play."
- Strike him in the ear and in the cheek — with the grip, per [SwordArmor 22]'s instruction.
- He goes down, and the Morgan puts it as a contrast of postures: "you will go to the flat, and I will stay upright."
- The verse witnesses attach an alternative the Morgan does not mention: "either from your left hand you will let go the sword, or you will go to the ground with such an entry."
Of the Master, and of his scholars, I take little care. This counter (contrario) I make against him with good measure: that is, when he comes with the cover, I with my left arm beat aside his left elbow. And thus taken, he can make no defense and can be struck. I could also make another counter: with my left hand I could turn him by his elbow — for such a play can well be done in armor and without armor.
- This is the counter (contrario), and it announces itself against the whole family at once: "of the Master, and of his scholars, I take little care."
- Wait for the cover. The counter is timed to the Remedy Master's action ([SwordArmor 8]), not to a blow.
- As he comes with it, beat his left elbow aside with your left arm, "with good measure" (cum bona misura).
- So taken, he can make no defense, and can be struck.
- A second counter, same lever: with the left hand, turn him by the elbow instead. Fiore adds that this one works in armor and without armor alike.
- The verse witnesses put a different play under this plate entirely. See the comparison.
real divergence in content: the Morgan's [25] is the counter to the Remedy Master's cover, while the Pisani Dossi and Paris verses describe a different play — a hold that imprisons the opponent's sword, cross-referenced to the fourth play of the axe (compare [Axe 4]).
Glossological analysis
- pancirone / cervilera ([23]) — a mail coat / a skullcap (worn under or in place of the helm). Named together as the two things that fail; the pair recurs from [Axe 1], where the axe's thrust claims to pierce them.
- mantenir ([22]) — the grip, here a striking surface against the ear and the cheek. Compare [SwordArmor 18], where the Getty lays the same mantenir across the neck to throw: same word, same advancing foot, different use.
- riverso ([23]) — here an adverb of direction — backward, onto the back — not the backhand blow that the same word names elsewhere ([S2H 10]). Fiore's vocabulary does both jobs with one word.
- guanza ([24]) — the cheek (mod. guancia), paired with orechia (the ear).
- al piano / in erto ([24]) — "to the flat" / "upright": the section's shorthand for the result of a throw — one man down, one standing. Erto = high, the same word that describes the high point at [SwordArmor 9] (la punta erta).
- rebatere ([25]) — to beat aside, displacing a weapon or a limb out of line; the standard verb ([S2H 3]).
- bona misura ([25]) — "good measure": the counter is made at the right distance. Misura is Fiore's distance-word, the lynx's "compass and measure" ([Preface, "Seven Swords"]).
- contrario ([25]) — the counter, third term of the unit attack → remedy → counter. This is the section's counter in the Morgan; the Getty's own Counter Master ([SwordArmor 27]) uses the same hand on the opposite elbow.
Manuscript comparison
- A real divergence at [25]: two different plays. The Morgan's [25] is the counter to the Remedy Master's cover — beat the left elbow aside with the left arm, or turn him by the elbow with the left hand. The Pisani Dossi and the Paris describe something else: a hold that imprisons the opponent's sword ("mine is free, yours is imprisoned"). No elbow, no cover, no counter. The two families put wholly different content under the same plate. (Flagged in Sword in Armor translation at [25]; see Manuscript comparison §5.)
- And the verse's cross-reference does not resolve. Both verse witnesses close [25] by naming an axe play as the thing being performed: "the fourth play that is in the art of the axe" (PD), "the play which is held fourth in the art of the poleaxe" (Paris). Our numbering makes that [Axe 4] — the Boar's Tooth / Middle Iron Gate, which is a guard, not a hold. If instead the count runs from the axe's first play, then in the Pisani Dossi's own axe sequence (four guards at 27a, the plays from 27b) the fourth play is its hold under the arm into the strong key ([Axe 11]) — at least a hold, but not one that imprisons a sword. The reference is deliberate and independent in two witnesses, and it lands on no numbering we have.
- Prose and verse disagree about what [22] is. The Morgan's [22] announces the two plays that follow. The Pisani Dossi and the Paris both say instead that the hands are being struck to win the lock: "Here I ruin your hands to come to the lock, the one that is so strong that it cares nothing for armor" (PD); "Here indeed I strike you on the hand, so that thereby the bind is won for me — the one that despises heavy armor" (Paris). The verse family reads the plate as an entry into the ligadura; the prose family reads it as a table of contents. (Flagged in the translation at [22].)
- The verse adds a disarm at [24]. The Morgan finishes with the throw alone. Both verse witnesses offer the disarm first: "either from your left hand you will let go the sword, or you will go to the ground." With [SwordArmor 19], where the verse insists on a disarm the prose never mentions, this makes a pattern: the verse family's imagination is a disarming one, the prose family's a locking one.
- Illustrations. [22]–[24] are the Pisani Dossi's (26b-a…c). [25] is the Morgan's own figure (11v-d) — the only Morgan illustration in the whole section, and it falls on the one plate where the Morgan's text and the verse witnesses describe different plays.