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Pisani Dossi 13a (no Getty text)
The first scholar, in the verse family only
One plate, and no Getty text for it: the first thing a scholar does with the sword in one hand survives only in the Pisani Dossi and the Paris. The base text here is therefore the couplet itself — the first of two places in this section ([Sword1H 5] is the other) where the prose family has nothing to say.
[3] Cover and thrust to the chest
Pisani Dossi · 13a-d
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 13a-d · Text: Pisani Dossi 13a-d · Paris 10v-b
Pisani Dossi · translation
With a step I have made a cover with my sword, and it has instantly entered your chest.
Flow of actions
- With a step, make a cover with the sword. Which step is not said — the couplet says only a step; the Master has already specified which one at [Sword1H 2] (front foot fora de strada, left foot across).
- From the cover, the point goes into his chest, and the text's whole emphasis is on the word instantly (subito): the thrust is not a second action.
- That is all there is. No hand, no foot, no line, no guard, no target beyond the chest.
The Paris supplies the one thing the Italian lacks: the man being covered against is "the raging one" (furentj) — the cover is made into a committed attack, not offered at leisure.
Glossological analysis
- passo ([3]) — a step, unqualified. The verse names the step as the cause of the cover and leaves its kind to the Master's instruction at [Sword1H 2]; the couplets assume the reader has the Master's page in front of him, which in the Pisani Dossi he does — 13a-c and 13a-d face each other.
- coverta ([3]) — the cover, and note the tense: "I have made a cover… and it has instantly entered your chest." Cover and thrust are reported as one completed act, which is cover-and-strike in a single tempo (Tactical grouping §2) stated grammatically rather than doctrinally.
- subito ([3]) — at once, instantly. The word carries the tactical content of the couplet: without it the line describes a parry followed by a thrust, which is not the play.
- peto ([3]) — the chest. This section names its targets relentlessly — chest here, head at [5] and [6], face at [7], neck at [11], throat at [12] — while never once naming a guard.
- furentj (Paris, [3]) — "the raging one". The Latin habitually substantivizes a participle for the opponent, naming him by what he is doing: furentj here, dantem ("the giver [of the blow]") at [5], mestum ("the sorrowing one") at [4]. The Pisani Dossi just says "you".
Manuscript comparison
- Coverage: no Getty, no Morgan. The play exists in the verse family alone. Since the Getty is our base text everywhere else, this plate and [Sword1H 5] are the two places in the section where the base text is the verse — and both are ordinary scholar's plays, not oddities. The prose family is not missing something strange; it is missing the first cover-and-thrust of the section.
- The two verses agree closely, and that is itself the evidence. Step, cover, chest — with the Paris expanding by one image (furentj) and one verb of manner (penetrabo, "I will pierce"). This is the ordinary Pisani-Dossi↔Paris relation: the Latin is the couplet re-versified, not an independent report (Manuscript comparison §6).
- They cannot agree on whether the man is dead. The Pisani Dossi reports the thrust as done — "it has instantly entered your chest"; the Paris promises it — "then with it I will straightway pierce your chest." Same plate, and the tense flips. The Italian couplets habitually boast in the perfect, the Latin in the future.
- Illustration. Pisani Dossi 13a-d, necessarily — the only witness that depicts it.