Folio 24 / 25
Pisani Dossi 24a (no Getty text)
Taken by the cover of the right hand
One plate, in the two verse witnesses only: a throw credited to a cover on the right — the same right-hand cover the verse family credits for the throw at [S2H 54], and the last of its three throws.
[74] Taken by the cover of the right hand
Pisani Dossi · 24a-a
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 24a-a · Text: Pisani Dossi 24a-a · Paris 30v-c
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
By the cover of the right hand I have taken you thus:
my sword in your face, you shall be stretched out on the ground.
Flow of actions
- The cause named: the cover of the right hand. The Paris makes it "the cover of the powerful right hand", and makes it the teacher of the play — "the cover of the powerful right hand has taught this".
- Your sword goes into his face — and stays there, per the Paris: "the sword shall hold your face".
- He goes to the ground, flat on his back.
- Nothing between the cover and the outcome is stated in either witness.
The verse family's throws all have this shape — a cover on the right, the sword to the face or the neck, the man laid out ([S2H 54], [S2H 57], [S2H 74]). Where the prose family describes the same movement it supplies feet and hands ([S2H 54] Morgan, [S2H 56] Morgan). The couplets never do, and here there is no prose to ask.
Glossological analysis
- "the cover of the right hand" ([74]) — the right-side cover, the verse family's stock entry into the throws (cf. [S2H 54]: "by the right-side cover I have taken you so well"). Note it names the hand, not the side of the body — the same construction as this manuscript's "cover of the reversed hand" at [S2H 58]. The Pisani Dossi classifies covers by hand; the Getty classifies them by line.
- "my sword in your face" ([74]) — the sword held against the face, not cutting it. The Paris is explicit: "the sword shall hold your face". Compare the sword at the neck of [S2H 53]–[S2H 55] and [S2H 65], which is the same idea used as a lever.
- "stretched out on the ground" ([74]) — the verse family's stock finish, and a formula: the same phrase closes [S2H 54] ("stretched out at full length"), and the Paris's version of [S2H 53] and [S2H 55] both end on the man laid out on the earth.
- the powerful right hand (Paris, [74]) — the Latin's addition. It grades the cover by force where the Italian merely names it; the same evaluative habit as nexio… prevalet at [S2H 66].
Manuscript comparison
- No prose witness, and no Morgan. The Pisani Dossi (24a-a) and the Paris (30v-c) alone.
- The two verses agree closely but distribute the emphasis differently. Both give the cover of the right hand, the sword to the face, and the man flat on the ground. But the Pisani Dossi's speaker has taken the man ("I have taken you thus"), while the Paris addresses the loser and makes the cover the instructor. The Latin turns a boast into a demonstration — the same move it makes at [S2H 66].
- The third right-side-cover throw the verse family carries ([S2H 54], [S2H 57], [S2H 74]), and the second with no prose at all. The verse family's close play is disproportionately made of throws; the prose family's is made of binds. This is the clearest single instance: a throw that only the couplets record.
- Leaf company. Pisani Dossi 24a holds this plate together with all three of the takings of the sword ([S2H 75] = 24a-b, [S2H 77] = 24a-c, [S2H 78] = 24a-d) — the leaf that the Getty splits across 30r and 30v. The verse family keeps the triad on one page; the prose family does not.
- Illustration. The Pisani Dossi's own (24a-a); the Paris figure is not reproduced.