Folio 23 / 25
Paris 27v (no Getty text)
Binding the sword and the arm together
The section's other Paris-only plate. Two lines that state, in the barest possible terms, the thing the close play keeps doing — sword and arm bound into one bundle — without saying how it is done.
[71] Binding sword and arm together
Paris · 27v-c
Illustration: Paris 27v-c · Text: Paris 27v-c
Paris · verse translation
How prudently I act, binding together your sword
and your own arm — for indeed I shall be able to strike you.
Flow of actions
- Bind his sword and his own arm together (spatam propriumque lacertum connectendo) — the two tied into one object.
- From that bind, strike him — "for indeed I shall be able to strike you".
- Nothing else is stated. Not which arm, not with what, not from what entry. The couplet's own word for the action is a virtue — "how prudently I act" — not a mechanic.
Glossological analysis
- connectere ([71]) — to bind together, tie into one. The Latin's verb for what the Italian calls ligare ([S2H 64]: "I have bound your arms"). Its object here is a compound — sword and arm — which is precisely the close play's characteristic target.
- lacertus ([71]) — the upper arm, properly the muscle of it; the Latin is more specific than the Italian brazo ([S2H 64]). Whether that specificity is technical or metrical, the plate does not let us test.
- prudenter ([71]) — prudently: with foresight and judgement. The Latin family habitually credits a play's virtue where the Italian credits its speed or its cunning — cf. [S2H 17], where the Long Guard steals to the throat "with cunning" (inzegno).
- binding rather than taking ([71]) — note the asymmetry with the disarms: [S2H 75]–[S2H 79] remove the weapon; this family leaves it in his hands and removes the use of it. The clearest statement of the difference is the Getty's at [S2H 64] — "your sword is in prison and cannot help you".
Manuscript comparison
- Paris-only, like [S2H 70] — and the two sit on adjacent Latin leaves (27v, 28r), both concerning the same knot of plays: [S2H 71] binds the sword to the arm, [S2H 70] counters the disarm. The Paris's close play has material no Italian witness records.
- The Paris leaf carries the dagger-import too. Paris 27v-a is [S2H 69] and 27v-c is [S2H 71] — the Latin's dagger-derived cluster on one leaf. Whether [S2H 71] is a distinct play or the Paris's separate illustration of [S2H 69]'s second branch — the middle lock, which is exactly "shutting in your arms" — no witness says; the Paris's own [S2H 69] couplet ends "with this I shall at once shut in your arms", which is [S2H 71]'s whole content. The two may be one play told twice.
- No prose to check it against. As at [S2H 58]–[S2H 60] and [S2H 66], the description is a boast and the figure is the technique.
- Illustration. The Paris's own (27v-c).