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Paris 28r (no Getty text)
The counter to the left-hand disarm
One plate, in the Paris and nowhere else: the counter to the left-hand disarm that [S2H 69] imports from the dagger. Two lines of Latin, and no witness to check them against.
[70] Counter to the left-hand disarm
Paris · 28r-b
Illustration: Paris 28r-b · Text: Paris 28r-b
Paris · verse translation
You came so that you could wrench my sword away with your left hand;
here at last, by the counter, you yourself shall perish.
Flow of actions
- His attempt: he has come to wrench your sword away with his left hand (ensem convellere leva) — the disarm of [S2H 69], the dagger's First Remedy Master transposed to the sword.
- You are the counter.
- The couplet states no mechanics at all. It names the attack and the outcome, and nothing between: "here at last, by the counter, you yourself shall perish."
- The figure is the only evidence for what the counter does.
Glossological analysis
- contrario ([70]) — the counter, third grade of Fiore's system. Note the Latin's syntax: the counter is the agent of the outcome ("by the counter, you yourself shall perish"), not something the speaker does. The Italian counters speak in the first person; this one credits the technique.
- convellere ([70]) — to wrench away, tear loose. A more violent verb than the Getty's "draw the sword from his hand" ([S2H 69]) for what is meant to be the same action.
- leva ([70]) — with the left hand. It is the identifying mark of the whole dagger-derived family — the left hand going under to take the weapon — and the Latin preserves it exactly.
- peribis ([70]) — "you shall perish". The Latin's characteristic finish. Where the Getty's counter to the same scholar states a doubt ([S2H 72]: "that you will stay on your feet with your sword — that I do not believe"), the Latin states a death.
Manuscript comparison
- Paris-only. No Getty, no Morgan, no Pisani Dossi. This is unusual on its face: the Paris normally shadows the Pisani Dossi couplet for couplet. Together with [S2H 71] it is one of only two Paris-only plates in the sword section — and both sit in this same knot of dagger-derived plays.
- It counters a play its usual partner never carries. [S2H 69] — the dagger-derived left-hand disarm — has a Getty text and a Paris couplet, but no Pisani Dossi and no Morgan. So the Paris is the only witness that holds both this counter and the play it counters. The Pisani Dossi has neither.
- Three counters, no complete witness. [S2H 70] (Paris), [S2H 72] (Getty + Pisani Dossi + Paris) and [S2H 73] (Getty only) all answer the scholar of [S2H 69]. The Paris carries two of them, the Getty two, the Pisani Dossi one. No manuscript carries all three.
- Leaf company. Paris 28r holds both [S2H 70] (28r-b) and [S2H 72] (28r-d): in the Latin, the counters to the dagger-import stand together on one leaf, which is not how any other witness arranges them.
- Illustration. The Paris's own figure (28r-b) — necessarily the only one the plate has.