Riposte+in+tertio

"Riposte in tertio" is the title of the fourth story / chapter of //The Unvanquished.//

A "riposte" is a fencing term (from French/Italian), referring to a quick returned assault after having parried (knocked aside) an opponent's advance. "in tertio" (from Latin) refers to in "third position" - third position might also be called a lunge, with the knee of the front knee bent and the trailing leg straight.

In the notes to the Vintage Edition, Noel Polk notes that this implies an unfair or unsportmanlike move. In //Faulkner: A Biography,// [|Joseph Plotner further describes] how this is "a rather arcane reference to a fencing move so unsportsmanlike and deadly that it was outlawed before the sixteenth century" (379).

In the context of Faulkner's chapter, the term may have multiple referents, and the reader's understanding of what the term may refer to continues to develop throughout the chapter. In a way, the back-and-forth is rather evocative of a fencing duel.

At the start of the chapter, the riposte may belong to Granny: she parries against the Yankee invasion by "requisitioning" their mules and selling them back to them. (Certainly cheating, rather unsportsmanlike, but perhaps not particularly deadly.)

However, Granny herself is soon attached - Grumby's murder of Granny is not exactly a riposte, since she struck him no blow to begin with. The riposte, rather, belongs to Bayard and Ringo. Is their killing of Grumby unsportsmanlike? I think not, but it is certainly deadly, and cutting his hand off suggests the sort of desperate and deadly counter-attack that "riposte in tertio" evokes.

//The Unvanquished,// 119-154 K. Montgomery