Preface

Here begins the Zettel (dye zedel — "the Record") of the knightly art of fencing, which Johannes Liechtenauer, who was a high master in the arts — God be gracious to him — composed and made: first with the long sword, then with the lance (glefen) and with the sword on horseback, then with the shortened sword for the judicial duel (zw champf).

And because the art belongs to princes and lords, knights and squires, so that they should know and learn it, he had this same art written out — each part separately — in hidden and disguised words (mit verporgen vnd verdackten worten), so that not everyone shall grasp or understand it, as you will find it written hereafter. And he did this on account of the frivolous fencing-masters (der leichtfertigen schirmaister) who hold their art cheaply, so that his art should not be made common or public by those same masters among people who would not keep the art in the honor that is its due.

Gotha (1448) heading instead:

Here begins Master Liechtenauer's art of the long sword, in the year of our Lord [14]48, etc.

Note: the Rome's "dem got genadig seÿ" ("God be gracious to him") shows Liechtenauer was already dead by 1452. The three-part program announced here (long sword — mounted lance and sword — shortened sword in the duel) is exactly the structure of the sections that follow, and "shortened sword" (kürzen swert) is the armored half-sword grip, not a shorter weapon.

This is the fore-speech (dy vor red):

Young knight, learn
to love God, and honor women always,
so your honor grows.
Practice knighthood, and learn
art that adorns you
and in wars attends you to honor.

Be a good grasper in wrestling (ringes guet fesser);
lance, spear, sword and messer
handle manfully,
and in other hands ruin them.

Strike in, and rush there;
rush in — hit, or let it go.
So that the knowing ones
hate him whom one sees praised:
on this take your hold —
all art has length and measure (leng vnd masse).

Nuremberg (MS 3227a): carries only the first three couplets, then breaks off with "etc~ ut supra In praeambulo etc~" ("as above in the preamble") — its compiler had already quoted the full prologue in his own foreword, and points back to it.

Gotha (1448): inserts extra didactic lines after the weapons list, garbled in transmission but legible in intent:

Many an honest man
[ruins them] in other hands;
if he knew art,
he might well win honor…

and closes "dar auff dich czihe / alle chunst leng vnd maß" — "draw yourself up on this: all art [has] length and measure."

Notes:

• "Ringes guet fesser" is an old crux. Reading fesser as "grasper/seizer": "[be a] good grasper of wrestling." The point of the couplet block is a curriculum: wrestling first, then lance, spear, sword, messer — the same weapons ladder the Zettel itself follows.
• "Mandleich bederben / vnd In anderen henden verderben" is a deliberate rhyme-pair (bederben/verderben): use them well ("manfully") in your own hands, make them useless in the enemy's.
• "Das yn die weyssen / Hassen dye mann sicht preysen" — literally "so that the wise hate him whom one sees praised." The sense (confirmed by the 3227a gloss tradition): fight so that envious knowers must grudge you the praise you visibly earn — a spur to excellence, not a warning against fame.
• The closing line — all art has length and measure — is the prologue's one technical thesis: the art is governed by proportion (distance and timing), not by strength; everything in the Tactical grouping hangs from it.