Getty 20v
What the scholars actually do from the Master's cover, in four plates: [6] and [7] are the cover-and-strike itself, [8] and [9] open the close-play options — lock, disarm, and the imprisoned arm — that the rest of the section works out. This is also the page where Fiore's own numbering can be checked against the manuscripts, and where it does not match the concordance used here (see the comparison).
I have found you completely uncovered, and I have struck you in the head for certain. And if I want to pass forward with my rear foot, I could make many close plays (zoghi stretti) against you — that is, locks (ligadure), breaks, and grappling.
- The cover has left him completely uncovered. Strike him in the head — "for certain".
- As the plate stands, that is the finish. The verse adds the fact the prose assumes: the strike was made without stepping.
- If you want more than the strike: pass forward with the rear foot.
- That pass — one step — buys the close plays (zoghi stretti): locks, breaks, and grappling.
Fiore names the price of admission to the close play here, and it is a single pass of the rear foot. The whole of the grappling section is one step away from the sword in one hand, and this is where he says so.
What the Master has said, I have done well: that is, I passed out of the way (fora de strada) making a good cover, and I find the player uncovered, so that I mean to place a thrust in his face for certain. And with my left hand I want to try whether I can make your sword go to the ground.
- The scholar's first words are a report on his Master: what the Master said at [Sword1H 2], he has done.
- He passed out of the way (fora de strada), making a good cover as he went — the Master's two-footed step, quoted back.
- The player is uncovered: place a thrust in his face, "for certain".
- And, at the same time, with the left hand: try whether his sword can be sent to the ground.
Note the hedge in step 4 — "I want to try whether I can" (voglo provare). Fiore rarely admits contingency this plainly, and the very next plate's verse stakes an oath on the same disarm. See the comparison.
With cut and with thrust I can strike you well. Also, if I advance the foot that is in front, I can bind you in the middle lock (ligadura mezana), which is depicted earlier, at the third play of the first Remedy Master of the dagger. Also I can do to you this play that follows me. And in this way I can strike you, and bind you too.
- From here you can strike with cut and with thrust — the default, stated first.
- Or: advance the front foot (acresco lo pe) and bind him in the middle lock (ligadura mezana) — the dagger's lock, at its fixed reference, the third play of the First Remedy Master ([Dagger 19]).
- Or: do the play that follows this one — [Sword1H 9], the sword and arm imprisoned.
- The Getty's own summary of the three: "in this way I can strike you, and bind you too."
- The verse describes none of that. It describes a disarm: the hand goes beneath the hilt (elzo) and the sword goes to the ground — the very attempt [Sword1H 7] said it would try.
This is the section's clearest prose-vs-verse content divergence: the Getty's plate strikes and locks, the Pisani Dossi's and the Paris's plate disarms. Neither mentions what the other does. See the comparison, and Sword in One Hand translation.
the versions diverge here: the Pisani Dossi and Paris verses describe the disarm begun in [7] (the hand beneath the hilt sending the sword to the ground), while the Getty prose speaks of striking and of the middle lock, cross-referencing the dagger section.
Your sword and your arm are well imprisoned, and you cannot escape without my striking you as I please, for you show that you know little of this play.
- His sword and his arm are imprisoned together (inpresonado) — bound, per the verse, by your left arm over his right.
- He cannot escape.
- Strike him as you please — the plate is a position, and the wounds are its consequence rather than its content.
- The Getty adds the taunt that is also the diagnosis: "you show that you know little of this play."
This is the plate the dagger-vs-sword section sends its readers to: [Dagger-Sword 4] says the dagger Master can "bind the sword together with his arm in the way that the fourth play of the sword in one hand knows how to do" — and that fourth play is this one. See the comparison for what Fiore's count reveals about the Getty's page order.
Glossological analysis
- zoghi stretti ([6]) — the close plays. In the longsword this is a state, entered according to where the swords cross ([S2H 48]); here it is something bought with one pass of the rear foot. The one-handed sword is the section that names the entry fee.
- ligadure, rotture, abrazare ([6]) — locks, breaks, grappling: the same triad the grappling Masters name as their finishers ([Grappling 3], [Grappling 5]). The sword section borrows the vocabulary without translating it — evidence that the two sections are meant to be read as one art.
- fora de strada ([7]) — off the line; the scholar quoting his Master's phrase from [Sword1H 2] word for word. The repetition is the pedagogy: the scholar's plate is a report of compliance.
- provare ([7]) — to try, put to the test — not "to prove". The scholar says he will try whether the sword can be sent to the ground. (Note the same root at [Dagger-Sword 2], where per prova does mean "by proof" — both senses live in the corpus.)
- elzo (PD, [8]) — the hilt (the cross and grip); the hand goes beneath it to lever the weapon out of the hand. The Paris confirms the target with capulo … prendo, "the hilt, which I plainly seize".
- ligadura mezana ([8]) — the middle lock, cited across weapons from its fixed reference at [Dagger 19]; reached here by an advance of the front foot (acresco lo pe) — the same lock the dagger Master reaches at [Dagger-Sword 4].
- guerzo (PD, [8]) — "cross-eyed": the verse's oath-form ("if your sword does not go to the ground, call me cross-eyed"). The Paris substitutes blind (cecum) — an insult to sight in both, but not the same insult.
- inpresonado ([9]) — imprisoned, of sword and arm together. The word is this section's, and the dagger-vs-sword sends its reader here to find it ([Dagger-Sword 4]).
Manuscript comparison
- Fiore's own count validates the Getty's page order. [Dagger-Sword 4] instructs the reader to bind the sword and arm "in the way that the fourth play of the sword in one hand knows how to do". Count the Getty's plays in page order after the Master at 20r-d — 20v-a, 20v-b, 20v-c, 20v-d — and the fourth is 20v-d, which is exactly the sword-and-arm imprisonment ([Sword1H 9]). Fiore's cross-reference and the Getty's page sequence agree precisely; the Getty's pages are in his order.
- The concordance's numbering is not. This file numbers Getty 20v-a as [7] and 20v-b as [6] — but every witness that carries both plates puts [7] first: Getty 20v-a before 20v-b, Morgan 17v-c before 17v-d, Pisani Dossi 13b-d before 14a-a. The numbers used throughout this file are a modern concordance, not any manuscript's sequence (Manuscript comparison §4D), and here they follow none of them.
- The verse family agrees against the prose on the order of [7] and [8]. The Pisani Dossi has [8] at 13b-c and [7] at 13b-d; the Paris has [8] at 11r-d and [7] at 11v-b — both put the disarm before the thrust to the face. The Getty reverses them (20v-a = [7], 20v-c = [8]). The two verse copies agree with each other and against the prose, which is the same family split the corpus shows elsewhere (§6).
- A real content divergence at [8], and a disagreement about certainty around it. The Getty describes striking and the middle lock, cross-referenced to [Dagger 19]; the Pisani Dossi and Paris describe the disarm — the hand beneath the hilt, the sword to the ground. No verse mentions a lock; no prose mentions the hilt. And where the Getty's scholar hedges at [7] — "I want to try whether I can make your sword go to the ground" — the Pisani Dossi's verse for the next plate stakes an oath on the same action ("call me cross-eyed"), and the Paris raises it to "call me blind". The prose attempts the disarm; the verse guarantees it.
- The couplet supplies what the prose assumes at [6]. The Getty offers a conditional pass: "if I want to pass forward with my rear foot, I could make many close plays." The couplet says why that condition is still open — "I have struck your head without stepping." The prose's if only makes sense because the strike has already landed without the pass; the verse states the fact the prose leaves implicit. Here the two families are not in conflict but genuinely complementary.
- Illustrations and coverage. All four plates are the Pisani Dossi's (13b-c, 13b-d, 14a-a, 14a-c); the Getty's own 20v figures are not shown. The Morgan carries [6] and [7] in text ("substantially identical") but not [8] or [9]; the Paris has [7] and [8] but neither [6] nor [9].