Fencing History and Tales
Introduction | Literary Allusions | Famous Duels and Duellists | Women and Combat
Literary
Allusions to Destreza, Carranza, & Pacheco
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
Dramatist, Poet; considered by many to be the pre-eminent playwright of England after
Shakespeare's death
At the beginning of the microfilm of Carranza's 1582 work, an anonymous hand-scrawled note in modern writing reads "This book is proceded [sic] by numerous commendatory poems, and was of such celebrity as to attract the notice of B. Johnson [sic] who quotes it more than once in his Plays."
The New Inne (1629)
Excerpt from The New Inne (1629), Act II, Scene 5
Tipto:
Your Spanish host is neuer seen in Cuerpo,
Without his Paramento's cloake, and sword.Fly:
Sir, he has the father
Of swords, within a long sword; Blade cornish stil'd
Of Sir Rud Hughdibras.Tipto:
And with a long sword, bully bird? thy fence.Fly:
To note him a tall-man, and a Master of fence:Tipto:
But doth he teach the Spanish way of Don Lewis? (1)Fly:
No, the Greeke Master he.Tipto:
what cal you him?Fly:
Euclide. (2)Tipto:
Fart upon Euclide, he is stale, and antique,
Give me the modernes.Fly:
Sir he minds no modernes,
Go by, Hieronymo! (3)Tipto:
What was he?Fly:
The Italian,
That plaid with Abbot Antony, in the Friars,
And Blinkin-sops the bold.Tipto:
Aye mary, those,
Had fencing names, what is become of them?Host:
They had their times, and we can say, they were
So had Caranza his: so had Don Lewis. (4)Tipto:
Don Lewis of Madrid, is the sole Master
Now, of the world.Host:
But this, of the other world
Euclide demonstrates! he! He is for all!
The only fencer of name, now in Elysium.Fly:
He does it all, by lines, and angles, Colonel.
By parallels, and sections, has his Diagrammes!Beaufort:
Wilt thou be flying, Fly?Latimer:
At all, why not?
The ayre is as free for a fly, as for an Eagle.Beaufort:
A Buzzard! he is in his contemplation!Tipto:
Euclide a fencer, and in the Elysium!Host:
He play'd a prize, last weeke, with Archimedes, (5)
And beate him I assure you.Tipto:
Do you assure me?
For what?Host:
For foure in the hundred. Give me fiue,
And I assure you, againe.Tipto:
Host, Peremptory,
You may be tane, But where? whence had you this?Host:
Upon the road, A post, that came from thence,
Three dayes agoe, here, left it with the Tapster.Fly:
Who is indeede a through*fare of newes,
Iack Iug with the broken belly, a witty fellow!Host:
Your Bird here heard him.Tipto:
Did you heare him Bird?Host:
Speake in the faith of a flie.Fly:
Yes, and he told us,
Of one that was the Prince of Oranges fencer,Tipto:
Steuinus?Fly:
Sir the same, had challeng'd Euclide
A thirty weapons more then Archimedes
Ere saw; and engines: most of his owne Inuention.Tipto:
This may have credit, and chimes reason, this!
If any man endeanger Euclide, Bird,
Obserue, that had the honor to quit Europe
This forty yeare, it is he. He put downe Scaliger. (6)Fly:
And he was a great Master.Beaufort:
Not of fence, Fly.Tipto:
Excuse him, Lord, he went on the same grounds.Beaufort:
On the same earth I thinke, with other Mortals?Tipto:
I meane, sweete Lord, the Mathematiques. Basta!
When thou know'st more, thou wilt take lesse, greene honor.
He had his circles, semicircles, quadrants --Fly:
He writ a booke of the quadrature of the Circle,Tipto:
Cyclometria, I read -- (7)Beaufort:
The title onely.Latimer:
And Indice.Beaufort:
If it had one of that qua*ere
What insolent, halfe-witted things, these are?Latimer:
So are all smatterers, insolent, and impudent.Tipto:
They lightly go together.Latimer:
It is my wonder!
Two animals should hawke at all discourse thus!
Flie euery subiect to the Marke, or retriue --Beaufort:
And neuer have the lucke to be in the right!Latimer:
It is some folkes fortune!Beaufort:
Fortune is a Baud
And a blind Begger: it is their vanity!
and shewes most vilely!Tipto:
I could take the heart, now,
To write to Don Lewis, into Spaine,
To make a progresse to the Elysian fields.
Next summer --Beaufort:
And perswade him die for fame,
Of fencing with a shadow! Where is mine Host?
I would he had heard this buble breake, i'fayth.
(1) "Don Lewis" refers to Don Luis Pacheco de Narvaez.
(2) "Euclide" refers Euclide of Alexandria (325 B.C. - 265 B.C.). He wrote a treatise on mathematics called The Elements, considered by many to be the most important work of mathematics ever published.
(3)
"Hieronymo" refers to the Italian Jeronimo. According
to George Silver in Paradoxes of Defense, "Jeronimo:
this gallant was valiant, and would fight indeed, and did, as you shall
hear. He being in a coach with a wench that he loved well, there was one
Cheese, a very tall man, in his fight natural English, for he fought with
his sword and dagger, and in rapier fight had no skill at all. This Cheese
having a quarrel to Jeronimo, overtook him upon the way, himself being
on horseback, did call to Jeronimo, and bade him come forth of the coach
or he would fetch him, for he was come to fight with him. Jeronimo presently
went forth of the coach and drew his rapier and dagger, put himself into
his best ward or Stocata, which ward was taught by himself and Vincentio,
and by them best allowed of, to be the best ward to stand upon in fight
for life, either to assault the enemy, or stand and watch his coming,
which ward it should seem he ventured his life upon, but howsoever with
all the fine Italianated skill Jeronimo had, Cheese with his sword within
two thrusts ran him into the body and slew him. Yet the Italian teachers
will say, that an Englishman cannot thrust straight with a sword, because
the hilt will not suffer him to put the forefinger upon the blade, nor
to hold the pommel in the hand, whereby we are of necessity to hold fast
the handle in the hand. By reason whereof we are driven to thrust both
compass and short, whereas with the rapier they can thrust both straight
and much further than we can with the sword, because of the hilt. And
these are the reasons they make against the sword."
(4) "Caranza" refers to Jeronimo de Carranza.
(5) "Archimedes" refers to Archimedes of Syracuse (287 B.C. - 212 B.C.).
(6) "Scaliger" refers to Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609).
(7) "Cyclometria" is a work written by Willebrord Snell of Leiden in 1621.
