Folio 16 / 25
Morgan 15r (no Getty text)
The Morgan's throw from the middle blow
A single plate carried by the Morgan and both verse witnesses but not by the Getty — and its text is very nearly the text the Getty gives to [S2H 55] one plate later. This page opens the section's loosest stretch of concordance, [S2H 54]–[S2H 57].
[54] Middle blow against middle blow, sword to the neck
Pisani Dossi · 22b-c
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 22b-c · Text: Morgan 15r-c · Pisani Dossi 22b-c · Paris 30r-a
Morgan · translation
This play is done in this way: one goes with the middle blow (colpo mezano) against the middle blow on the backhand side, and immediately goes with a cover to the close (ale strette), and throws his sword at the companion's neck, gripping his own right hand with his own left, as is depicted here. He can throw him to the ground without fail, setting his right foot behind the player's right.
Flow of actions
- He throws a middle blow (colpo mezano); you answer with a middle blow of your own, on the backhand side — blow against blow, not blow against cover.
- Immediately go with a cover to the close (ale strette). The blow-exchange is the entry; the cover is the arrival.
- Throw your sword at his neck, laying the blade across it.
- Grip your own right hand with your own left. You are no longer holding the sword by its grip — you are holding yourself, so that your arms close into a loop with his neck and your blade inside it.
- Set your right foot behind his right foot.
- Throw him — "without fail".
Step 4 is the play, and it is the only place in the section that says it outright: this is a grappling clinch with a sword lying in it. The blade is the bar; the joined hands are the lock; the foot behind is the trip.
Glossological analysis
- colpo mezano ([54]) — the middle blow, defined at [S2H 10]: through the middle, true edge from the forehand, false edge from the backhand. Used here as a meeting blow — it is thrown against his, not at him.
- ale strette ([54]) — "to the close", the adverbial of zogho stretto ([S2H 48]). The same phrase names the Full Iron Gate's entry at [S2H 12] and the crossing at [S2H 62].
- coverta ([54]) — the cover, here a transition rather than a defense: what carries you from the blow-exchange into the bind. Fiore's covers routinely do this double duty ([S2H 67], [S2H 74]).
- compagno ([54]) — the companion: Fiore's neutral word for the other man where no scholar/player role has been assigned. Not a friend, and not an ally.
- the backhand side ([54]) — the left line. Note that both verse witnesses credit the cover from the right instead; see below.
- gripping one's own right hand with one's own left ([54]) — the mechanic the Getty never states. It converts two hands on a sword into one closed bracket, and it is what makes [S2H 54] a throw rather than a posture.
Manuscript comparison
- The Getty has no text for this play — the Morgan is the base. But the Getty's [S2H 55], one plate on, is nearly this same text: middle blow against middle blow on the backhand, cover to the close, sword at the neck, throw without fail. The Getty appears to carry once what the Morgan carries twice, or the concordance has split one play across two numbers. Flagged in Sword in Two Hands translation.
- The Morgan holds the mechanics the Getty drops. Only the Morgan tells you to grip your right hand with your left and to set your right foot behind his. Both are what make the throw work; without them the Getty's [S2H 55] describes a position and calls it a throw.
- Both verse witnesses attach here, not to [S2H 55]. The Pisani Dossi (22b-c) and the Paris (30r-a) both make the cover the cause and the man laid flat the result; the Paris adds the throat — "the cover from the right advises me to seize you by the throat".
- The families name different lines. The Morgan's prose meets the middle blows on the backhand side; both verses credit the cover from the right. They may be describing successive moments — the prose never says which side its cover is on — but as written the two families put the weight on opposite lines.
- This is where the concordance breaks. [S2H 54]–[S2H 57] is the loosest stretch in the sword section: the Getty lacks [S2H 54] entirely; the Getty and Morgan describe different plays at [S2H 55] and again at [S2H 56]; and the Morgan lacks [S2H 57]. Four consecutive plates, no two witnesses running parallel through them.
- Illustration. The Pisani Dossi's figure (22b-c); the Morgan's own is not reproduced — so the base text and the picture come from different manuscripts.