Carranza’s Second Dialogue, as abridged by Pacheco

It’s been a good while since I’ve issued a bit of Compendio to the public! It’s worth knowing that the Second Dialogue is very different in character from the other three dialogues. It’s a farce, built for the sole purpose of humiliating the scene’s guest star, the Vulgar Maestro (who never gets a name). Maybe one day, once I have a couple of clones, I’ll edit this to create a radio play or even a stage production. But until then, please enjoy the Second Dialogue, which contains (once you strip the mockery from it) some very recognisable vulgar techniques that you can learn more about from Tim Rivera’s translation of Godinho’s Art of Fencing.

Happy birthday! Compendio for everyone! (At least the bits I’ve already done)

It’s my 45th, and it’s a little past my Patreon’s first. So let’s celebrate! Linked in this post you’ll find the Prologue and the First Dialogue of Pacheco’s Compendio. Because of the generous support of my Patrons (who receive these releases three months early), I’ve had the time and space to read up on Aristotelian and Renaissance science to update some of the footnotes and text in these two files.  Here’s that Prologue! Here’s that First Dialogue! Now, on to some details.  What is Compendio? The Compendio de la filosofia y destreza de las armas, de Jerónimo de Carranza, is Don Luis Pacheco‘s heavy (heavy!) edit of Carranza‘s Philosophy of Arms, considered to be the source of an Iberian fencing style called la verdadera destreza (LVD).  Pacheco deliberately notes in his prologue that he’s gone through Carranza’s text and omitted anything not directly related to fencing. For someone whose sentences … Read on!

Dialectic and Drama in Compendio

Even though I’m only a quarter of the way through Dialogue 2, In Pacheco’s Compendio, his very heavy redaction of Carranza’s Philosophy of Arms, the contrast between it and Dialogue 1 is stark. I kind of feel a kinship with Carranza, because as formal as he is in the First Dialogue, he lets his inner playwright run rampant in the second. (As much as I do research and fact-based work, my true love lies with fiction and dialogue.) This is just an early analysis, a sort of feeling things out about the book itself, but I think there’s much to be learned from the differences in these two sections. The first hews pretty closely to dialectic teaching structures. The second, however, is much more dramatic, much more like what you might see on stage. Why would Carranza do that? Was it caprice? What might it achieve? Let’s look at dialectics … Read on!