The Steel Marginalia

Getty folio	Plates	Content	Getty images	Verse witnesses
22r	[1]–[3]	The two Woman's Guards, the three turns, the four things; first two sword-holds	[1], [2], [3]	PD 17b
22v	[4]–[7]	Third to sixth of the six sword-holds	[4], [5], [6], [7]	PD 17b
23r	[8]–[11]	The blows: descending, rising, middle, and the thrusts	[8]	PD 12b–13a
23v	[12], [14], [15], [22]	Full Iron Gate; Woman's Guard right; Window; Woman's Guard left	[14]	PD 18a–19a · Paris 12v–13v
24r	[16], [17], [20], [21]	Middle Iron Gate; Long; Boar's Tooth; Short	—	PD 18a–19a · Paris 12v–13v
24v	[18], [23]–[25]	Forehead/Crown; Long Tail; Two-Horned; Middle Boar's Tooth	[24], [25]	PD 18b–19a · Paris 13r–13v
(Morgan 12v)	[19]	Woman's Guard set against the Boar's Tooth	—	PD 18b · Paris 13r
25r	[26]–[28]	The sword speaks; first Master of the wide play — crossing at the point	[27]	PD 19b · Paris 14r
25v	[29]–[32]	Second Master — crossing at the middle; seizing the blade; the kick to the leg	[29]	PD 19b–20a · Paris 14v
26r	[33]–[36]	The Peasant's Blow; defense of the leg; the kick to the testicles	—	PD 20a–20b
26v	[37]–[40]	Exchange of thrusts; breaking of the thrust; foot on the sword	[37], [38], [39], [40]	PD 20b–21a · Paris 15r–15v
27r	[41]–[44]	From the breaking of the thrust; the elbow push	[41], [42]	PD 21a–21b · Paris 26r
27v	[45]–[47]	The false thrust and its counter; end of the wide play	—	PD 21b · Paris 28v
27v	[48]	Rubric: here begins the close play	—	(none — prose only)
28r	[49]–[52]	The Masters crossed; grip on the handle; two pommel strikes	[49], [50]	PD 22a · Paris 26r–26v
28v	[53], [63], [67], [68]	Throat cut; arms shut under the arm; the break of every sword-taking	[53], [63], [67]	PD 22b–23a · Paris 27r
(Morgan 15r)	[54]	Throw from the middle blow, own hands gripped	—	PD 22b · Paris 30r
30r	[55], [62], [75], [76]	Throw at the neck; hold against takings and locks; the high taking	[55], [75], [76]	PD 23a–24a · Paris 29r–30r
29r	[56], [61], [64], [65]	Seizing the blade; seizing the pommel; the middle lock	[56], [61], [64], [65]	PD 23a
29v	[57], [69], [72], [73]	Face cut with his own sword; the dagger's play borrowed, and two counters	[69], [73]	PD 22b–23b · Paris 27v–30v
(PD 23b)	[58]–[60]	The cover of the reversed hand, and its two plays	—	PD 23b (sole witness)
(PD 23a)	[66]	Counter to the middle taking of the sword	—	PD 23a · Paris 28v
(Paris 28r)	[70]	Counter to the left-hand disarm	—	Paris 28r (sole witness)
(Paris 27v)	[71]	Binding the sword and the arm together	—	Paris 27v (sole witness)
(PD 24a)	[74]	Taken by the cover of the right hand	—	PD 24a · Paris 30v
30v	[77]–[79]	The middle and low takings, and a fourth with the round turn	—	PD 24a–24b · Paris 29r–29v

Eighteen Getty folios, 78 plates (the numbering runs [1]–[79] with no [13]), 95 illustrations — 54 from the Pisani Dossi, 34 from the Getty, six from the Paris, one from Cod. 1324. Getty 27v appears twice above because the section's two halves meet inside it: its first three columns end the wide play, its fourth opens the close.

Three patterns run the length of the section. First, the wide play is the concordant half and the close play is not. From [S2H 12] to [S2H 52] the Morgan is "substantially identical to the Getty" on nearly every plate; from [S2H 54] onward that sentence never appears again without a qualification — the two prose witnesses describe different plays at [S2H 55], [S2H 56], [S2H 62] and [S2H 79], and the Morgan finishes at [S2H 77] an explanation the Getty leaves hanging. The Morgan's own leaves compound it: 15r–15v carry the takings of the sword, 16r the rubric that announces them, so in its foliation the section ends a full leaf before it begins.

Second, the division of labour between the families holds throughout, and only becomes a problem when the prose runs out. The Getty carries the mechanics, the conditions and the reasoning; the verse witnesses carry the outcome and the boast. That is survivable across the wide play, where the Getty has everything. It is not survivable at [S2H 58]–[S2H 60], [S2H 66], [S2H 70] and [S2H 71], where the verse is the only witness — six plates whose technique cannot be recovered from any text, because every couplet that records them states a result and none states an action. The reverse gap is just as real: [S2H 61], [S2H 63], [S2H 65] and [S2H 73] exist in the Getty alone.

Third, the close play is the sword's grappling section. Its rubric at [S2H 48] promises locks, dislocations, holds, takings of the sword and throws — four of those five are the working vocabulary of [Grappling], not of the sword. [S2H 54] joins your own hands into a bracket around a man's neck; [S2H 69] borrows a play outright from the dagger's First Remedy Master and names the lock it produces with the dagger's own word; and the three takings of the sword at [S2H 75], [S2H 77] and [S2H 78] are graded high, middle and low on exactly the pattern of the three locks. The wide play is what the sword does with its edge. The close play is what it does with everything else — and what it does is bind the man to his own weapon and take him to the ground.