The Bull-fight--Opening of Spectacle--First Act, and Appearance of
the Bull--The Picador--Bull Bastinado--The Horses, and their Cruel
Treatment--Fire and Dogs--The Second Act--The Chulos and their
Darts--The Third Act--The Matador--Death of the Bull--The
Conclusion, and Philosophy of the Amusement--Its Effect on Ladies.
When the appointed much-wished-for hour is come, the Queen or the
_Corregidor_ takes the seat of honour in a central and splendid box, the
mob having been previously expelled from the open arena; this operation
is called the _despejo_, and is an amusing one, from the reluctance with
which the great unwashed submit to be cleaned out. The proceedings open
at a given signal with a procession of the combatants, who advance
preceded by _alguaciles_, or officers of police, who are dressed in the
ancient Spanish costume, and are always at hand to arrest any one who
infringes the severe laws against interruptions of the games. Then
follow the _picadores_, or mounted horsemen, with their spears. Their
original broad-brimmed Spanish hats are decorated with ribbons; their
upper man is clad in a gay silken jacket, whose lightness contrasts with
the heavy iron and leather protections of the legs, which give the
clumsy look of a French jackbooted postilion. These defences are
necessary when the horned animal charges home. Next follow the _chulos_,
or combatants on foot, who are arrayed like Figaro at the opera, and
have, moreover, silken cloaks of gay colours. The _matadores_, or
killers, come behind them; and, last of all, a gaily-caparisoned team of
mules, which is destined to drag the slaughtered bulls from the arena.
As for the men, those who are killed on the spot are denied the
burial-rites if they die without confession. Springing from the dregs of
the people, they are eminently superstitious, and cover their breasts
with relics, amulets, and papal charms. A clergyman, however, is in
attendance with the sacramental wafer, in case _su majestad_ may be
wanted for a mortally-wounded combatant.
[Sidenote: ENTRANCE OF THE BULL.]
Having made their obeisances to the chief authority, all retire, and the
fatal trumpet sounds; then the president throws the key of the gate by
which the bull is to enter, to one of the _alguaciles_, who ought to
catch it in his hat. When the door is opened, this worthy gallops away
as fast as he can, amid the hoots and hisses of the mob, not because he
rides like a constable, but from the instinctive enmity which his
majesty the many bear to the finisher of the law, just as little birds
love to mob a hawk; now more than a thousand kind wishes are offered up
that the bull may catch and toss him. The brilliant army of combatants
in the meanwhile separates like a bursting shell, and take up their
respective places as regularly as our fielders do at a cricket-match.
The play, which consists of three acts, then begins in earnest; the
drawing up of the curtain is a spirit-stirring moment; all eyes are
riveted at the first appearance of the bull on this stage, as no one can
tell how he may behave. Let loose from his dark cell, at first he seems
amazed at the novelty of his position; torn from his pastures,
imprisoned and exposed, stunned by the noise, he gazes an instant around
at the crowd, the glare, and waving handkerchiefs, ignorant of the fate
which inevitably awaits him. He bears on his neck a ribbon, “la devisa,”
which designates his breeder. The picador endeavours to snatch this off,
to lay the trophy at his true love’s heart. The bull is condemned
without reprieve; however gallant his conduct, or desperate his
resistance, his death is the catastrophe; the whole tragedy tends and
hastens to this event, which, although it is darkly shadowed out
beforehand, as in a Greek play, does not diminish the interest, since
all the intermediate changes and chances are uncertain; hence the
sustained excitement, for the action may pass in an instant from the
sublime to the ridiculous, from tragedy to farce.
[Sidenote: BULL BASTINADO.]
The bull no sooner recovers his senses, than his splendid Achillean rage
fires every limb, and with closing eyes and lowered horns he rushes at
the first of the three picadores, who are drawn up to the left, close to
the _tablas_, or wooden barrier which walls round the ring. The horseman
sits on his trembling Rosinante, with his pointed lance under his right
arm, as stiff and valiant as Don Quixote. If the animal be only of
second-rate power and courage, the sharp point arrests the charge, for
he well remembers this _garrocha_, or goad, by which herdsmen enforce
discipline and inculcate instruction; during this momentary pause a
quick picador turns his horse to the left and gets free. The bulls,
although irrational brutes, are not slow on their part in discovering
when their antagonists are bold and dexterous, and particularly dislike
fighting against the pricks. If they fly and will not face the picador,
they are hooted at as despicable malefactors, who wish to defraud the
public of their day’s sport, they are execrated as “goats,” “cows,”
which is no compliment to bulls; these culprits, moreover, are soundly
beaten as they pass near the barrier by forests of sticks, with which
the mob is provided for the nonce; that of the elegant _majo_, when
going to the bull-fight, is very peculiar, and is called _la chivata_;
it is between four and five feet long, is taper, and terminates in a
lump or knob, while the top is forked, into which the thumb is inserted;
it is also peeled or painted in alternate rings, black and white, or red
and yellow. The lower classes content themselves with a common
shillelah; one with a knob at the end is preferred, as administering a
more impressive whack; their instrument is called _porro_, because heavy
and lumbering.
Nor is this bastinado uncalled for, since courage, address, and energy,
are the qualities which ennoble tauromachia; and when they are wanting,
the butchery, with its many disgusting incidents, becomes revolting to
the stranger, but to him alone; for the gentler emotions of pity and
mercy, which rarely soften any transactions of hard Iberia, are here
banished altogether from the hearts of the natives; they now only have
eyes for exhibitions of skill and valour, and scarcely observe those
cruel incidents which engross and horrify the foreigner, who again on
his part is equally blind to those redeeming excellencies, on which
alone the attention of the rest of the spectators is fixed; the tables
are now turned against the stranger, whose æsthetic mind’s eye can see
the poetry and beauty of the picturesque rags and tumbledown hamlets of
Spaniards, and yet is blind to the poverty, misery, and want of
civilization, to which alone the vision of the higher classed native is
directed, on whose exalted soul the coming comforts of cotton are
gleaming.
[Sidenote: A GOOD BULL.]
When the bull is turned by the spear of the first picador, he passes on
to the two other horsemen, who receive him with similar cordiality. If
the animal be baffled by their skill and valour, stunning are the
shouts of applause which celebrate the victory of the men: should he on
the contrary charge home and overwhelm horses and riders, then--for the
balances of praise and blame are held with perfect fairness--the fierce
lord of the arena is encouraged with roars of compliments, _Bravo toro_,
_Viva toro_, Well done, bull! even a long life is wished to him by
thousands who know that he must be dead in twenty minutes.
A bold beast is not to be deterred by a trifling inch-deep wound, but
presses on, goring the horse in the flank, and then gaining confidence
and courage by victory, and “baptized in blood,” à la Française,
advances in a career of honour, gore, and glory. The picador is seldom
well mounted, for the horses are provided, at the lowest possible price,
by a contractor, who runs the risk whether many or few are killed; they
indeed are the only things economised in this costly spectacle, and are
sorry, broken-down hacks, fit only for the dog-kennel of an English
squire, or carriage of a foreign _Pair_. This increases the danger to
his rider; in the ancient combats, the finest and most spirited horses
were used; quick as lightning, and turning to the touch, they escaped
the deadly rush. The eyes of those poor horses which see and will not
face death, are often bound over with a handkerchief, like criminals
about to be executed; thus they await blindfold the fatal horn thrust
which is to end their life of misery.
[Sidenote: DEATH OF THE HORSE.]
The picadors are subject to most severe falls; the bull often tosses
horse and rider in one ruin, and when his victims fall with a crash on
the ground exhausts his fury upon his prostrate foes. The picador
manages (if he can) to fall off on the opposite side, in order that his
horse may form a barrier and rampart between him and the bull. When
these deadly struggles take place, when life hangs on a thread, the
amphitheatre is peopled with heads; every feeling of anxiety, eagerness,
fear, horror, and delight is stamped on their expressive countenances;
if happiness is to be estimated by quality, intensity, and
concentration, rather than duration (and it is), these are moments of
excitement more precious to them, than ages of placid, insipid, uniform
stagnation. Their feelings are wrought to a pitch, when the horse,
maddened with wounds and terror, plunging in the death-struggle, the
crimson seams of blood streaking his foam and sweat-whitened body,
flies from the infuriated bull still pursuing, still goring; then are
displayed the nerve, presence of mind, and horsemanship of the dexterous
and undismayed picador. It is in truth a piteous sight to see the poor
mangled horses treading out their entrails, and yet gallantly carrying
off their riders unhurt. But as in the pagan sacrifices, the quivering
intestines, trembling with life, formed the most propitious omens--to
what will not early habit familiarise?--so the Spaniards are no more
affected with the reality, than the Italians are with the abstract
“tanti palpiti” of Rossini.
[Sidenote: WOUNDED HORSES.]
The miserable horse, when dead, is dragged out, leaving a bloody furrow
on the sand, as the river-beds of the arid plains of Barbary are marked
by the crimson fringe of the flowering oleanders. A universal sympathy
is shown for the horseman in these awful moments; the men rise, the
women scream, but all this soon subsides; the _picador_, if wounded, is
carried out and forgotten--“_los muertos y idos no tienen amigos_”--a
new combatant fills up his gap, the battle rages--wounds and death are
the order of the day--he is not missed; and as new incidents arise, no
pause is left for regret or reflection. We remember seeing at Granada a
matador cruelly gored by a bull: he was carried away as dead, and his
place immediately taken by his son, as coolly as a viscount succeeds to
an earl’s estate and title. Carnerero, the musician, died while fiddling
at a ball at Madrid, in 1838; neither the band nor the dancers stopped
one moment. The boldness of the picadors is great. Francisco Sevilla,
when thrown from his horse and lying under the dying animal, seized the
bull, as he rushed at him, by his ears, turned round to the people, and
laughed; but, in fact, the long horns of the bull make it difficult for
him to gore a man on the ground; he generally bruises them with his
nose: nor does he remain long busied with his victim, since he is lured
to fresh attacks by the glittering cloaks of the _Chulos_ who come
instantly to the rescue. At the same time we are free to confess, that
few picadors, although men of bronze, can be said to have a sound rib in
their body. When one is carried off apparently dead, but returns
immediately mounted on a fresh horse, the applauding voice of the people
outbellows a thousand bulls. If the wounded man should chance not to
come back, _n’importe_, however courted outside the _Plaza_, now he is
ranked, like the gladiator was by the Romans, no higher than a
beast,--or about the same as a slave under the perfect equality and man
rights of the model republic.
[Sidenote: A COWARD BULL.]
The poor horse is valued at even less, and he, of all the actors, is the
one in which Englishmen, true lovers and breeders of the noble animal,
take the liveliest interest; nor can any bull-fighting habit ever
reconcile them to his sufferings and ill-treatment. The hearts of the
picadors are as devoid of feeling as their iron-cased legs; they only
think of themselves, and have a nice tact in knowing when a wound is
fatal or not. Accordingly, if the horn-thrust has touched a vital part,
no sooner has the enemy passed on to a new victim, than an experienced
picador quietly dismounts, takes off the saddle and bridle, and hobbles
off like Richard, calling out for another horse--a horse! The poor
animal, when stripped of these accoutrements, has a most rippish look,
as it staggers to and fro, like a drunken man, until again attacked by
the bull and prostrated; then it lies dying unnoticed in the sand, or,
if observed, merely rouses the jeers of the mob; as its tail quivers in
the last agony of death, your attention is called to the _fun_; _Mira,
mira, que cola!_ The words and sight yet haunt us, for they were those
that first caught our inexperienced ears and eyes at the first rush of
the first bull of our first bullfight. While gazing on the scene in a
total abstraction from the world, we felt our coat-tails tugged at, as
by a greedily-biting pike; we had caught, or, rather, were caught by a
venerable harridan, whose quick perception had discovered a novice, whom
her kindness prompted to instruct, for e’en in the ashes live the wonted
fires; a bright, fierce eye gleamed alive in a dead and shrivelled face,
which evil passions had furrowed like the lava-seared sides of an
extinct volcano, and dried up, like a cat starved behind a wainscot,
into a thing of fur and bones, in which gender was obliterated--let her
pass. If the wound received by the horse be not instantaneously mortal,
the blood-vomiting hole is plugged up with tow, and the fountain of life
stopped for a few minutes. If the flank is only partially ruptured, the
protruding bowels are pushed back--no operation in hernia is half so
well performed by Spanish surgeons--and the rent is sown up with a
needle and pack-thread. Thus existence is prolonged for new tortures,
and a few dollars are saved to the contractor; but neither death nor
lacerations excite the least pity, nay, the bloodier and more fatal the
spectacle, the more brilliant is it pronounced. It is of no use to
remonstrate, or ask why the wounded sufferers are not mercifully killed
at once; the utilitarian Spaniard dislikes to see the order of the sport
interrupted and spoilt by what he considers foreign squeamishness and
nonsense, “_Ah que! no vale nã_,”--“Bah! the beast is worth nothing;”
that is, provided he condescends to reply to your _disparates_ with
anything beyond a shrug of civil contempt. But national tastes will
differ. “Sir,” said an alderman to Dr. Johnson, “in attempting to listen
to your long sentences, and give you a short answer, I have swallowed
two pieces of green fat, without tasting the flavour. I beg you to let
me enjoy my present happiness in peace and quiet.”
The bull is the hero of the scene; yet, like Satan in the Paradise Lost,
he is foredoomed. Nothing can save him from a certain fate, which awaits
all, whether brave or cowardly. The poor creatures sometimes endeavour
in vain to escape, and have favourite retreats, to which they fly; or
they leap over the barrier, among the spectators, creating a vast hubbub
and fun, upsetting water-carriers and fancy men, putting sentinels and
old women to flight, and affording infinite delight to all who are safe
in the boxes; for, as Bacon remarks, “It is pleasant to see a battle
from a distant hill.” Bulls which exhibit this cowardlike activity are
insulted: cries of “fuego” and “perros,” fire and dogs, resound, and he
is condemned to be baited. As the Spanish dogs have by no means the
pluck of the English assailants of bulls, they are longer at the work,
and many are made minced-meat of:--
“Up to the stars the growling mastiffs fly
And add new monsters to the frighted sky.”
[Sidenote: CHULOS AND SECOND ACT.]
When at length the poor brute is pulled down, he is stabbed in the
spine, as if he were only fit for the shambles, being a civilian ox, not
a soldierlike bull. All these processes are considered as deadly
insults; and when more than one bull exhibits these craven propensities
to baulk nobler expectancies, then is raised the cry of “_Cabestros al
circo!_” tame oxen to the circus. This is a mortal affront to the
_empresa_, or management, as it infers that it has furnished animals
fitter for the plough than for the arena. The indignation of the mob is
terrible; for, if disappointed in the blood of bulls, it will lap that
of men.
The bull is sometimes teased with stuffed figures, men of straw with
leaded feet, which rise up again as soon as he knocks them down. An old
author relates that in the time of Philip IV. “a despicable peasant was
occasionally set upon a lean horse, and exposed to death.” At other
times, to amuse the populace, a monkey is tied to a pole in the arena.
This art of ingeniously tormenting is considered as unjustifiable
homicide by certain lively philosimious foreigners; and, indeed, all
these episodes are despised as irregular _hors d’œuvres_, by the real
and business-like amateur.
[Sidenote: THE MATADOR AND THIRD ACT.]
After a due time the first act terminates: its length is uncertain.
Sometimes it is most brilliant, since one bull has been known to kill a
dozen horses, and clear the _plaza_. Then he is adored; and as he roams,
snorting about, lord of all he surveys, he becomes the sole object of
worship to ten thousand devotees; at the signal of the president, and
sound of a trumpet, the second act commences with the performances of
the _chulo_, a word which signifies, in the Arabic, a lad, a merryman,
as at our fairs. The duty of this light division, these skirmishers, is
to draw off the bull from the _picador_ when endangered, which they do
with their coloured cloaks; their address and agility are surprising,
they skim over the sand like glittering humming-birds, scarcely touching
the earth. They are dressed in short breeches, and without gaiters, just
as Figaro is in the opera of the ‘_Barbiere de Seviglia_.’ Their hair is
tied into a knot behind, and enclosed in the once universal silk net,
the _retecilla_--the identical _reticulum_--of which so many instances
are seen on ancient Etruscan vases. No bull-fighters ever arrive at the
top of their profession without first excelling in this apprenticeship;
then, they are taught how to entice the bull to them, and learn his mode
of attack, and how to parry it. The most dangerous moment is when these
_chulos_ venture out into the middle of the _plaza_, and are followed by
the bull to the barrier. There is a small ledge, on which they place
their foot, and vault over, and a narrow slit in the boarding, through
which they slip. Their escapes are marvellous, and they win by a neck;
they seem really sometimes, so close is the run, to be helped over the
fence by the bull’s horns. The _chulos_, in the second act, are the
sole performers; their part is to place small barbed darts, on each side
of the neck of the bull, which are called _banderillas_, and are
ornamented with cut paper of different colours--gay decorations under
which cruelty is concealed. The _banderilleros_ go right up to him,
holding the arrows at the shaft, and pointing the barbs at the bull;
just when the animal stoops to toss his foes, they jerk them into his
neck and slip aside. The service appears to be more dangerous than it
is, but it requires a quick eye, a light hand and foot. The barbs should
be placed to correspond with each other exactly on both sides. Such
pretty pairs are termed _buenos pares_ by the Spaniards, and the feat is
called _coiffer_ le taureau by the French, who undoubtedly are
first-rate perruquiers. Very often these arrows are provided with
crackers, which, by means of a detonating powder, explode the moment
they are affixed in the neck; thence they are called _banderillas de
fuego_. The agony of the scorched and tortured animal makes him plunge
and bound like a sportive lamb, to the intense joy of the populace,
while the fire, the smell of singed hair and roasted flesh, which our
gastronome neighbours would call a _bifstec à l’Espagnole_, faintly
recall to many a dark scowling priest the superior attractions of his
former amphitheatre, the _auto de fe_.
The last trumpet now sounds, the arena is cleared, and the _matador_,
the executioner, the man of death, stands before his victim alone; on
entering, he addresses the president, and throws his cap to the ground.
In his right hand he holds a long straight Toledan blade; in his left he
waves the _muleta_, the red flag, or the _engaño_, the lure, which ought
not (so Romero laid down in our hearing) to be so large as the standard
of a religious brotherhood, nor so small as a lady’s pocket-handkerchief,
but about a yard square. The colour is always red, because that best
irritates the bull and conceals blood. There is always a spare slayer at
hand in case of accidents, which may happen in the best regulated
bull-fights.
[Sidenote: PREPARATION FOR EXECUTION.]
The _matador_, from being alone, concentrates in himself all the
interest as regards the human species, which was before frittered away
among the many other combatants, as was the case in the ancient
gladiatorial shows of Rome. He advances to the bull, in order to entice
him towards him, or, in nice technical idiom, _citarlo á la jurisdiccion
del engaño_, to cite him into the jurisdiction of the trick; in plain
English, to subpœna him, or, as our ring would say, get his head into
chancery. And this trial is nearly as awful, as the matador stands
confronted with his foe, in the presence of inexorable witnesses, the
bar and judges, who would rather see the bull kill _him_ twice over,
than that he should kill the bull contrary to the rules and practice of
the court and tauromachian precedent. In these brief but trying moments
the matador generally looks pale and anxious, as well he may, for life
hangs on the edge of a razor, but he presents a fine picture of fixed
purpose and concentration of moral energy. And Seneca said truly that
the world had seen as many examples of courage in gladiators, as in the
Catos and Scipios.
The matador endeavours rapidly to discover the character of the animal,
and examines with eye keener than Spurzheim, his bumps of combativeness,
destructiveness, and other amiable organs; nor has he many moments to
lose, where mistake is fatal, as one must die, and both may. Here, as
Falstaff says, there is no scoring, except on the pate. Often even the
brute bull seems to feel that the last moment is come, and pauses, when
face to face in the deadly duel with his single opponent. Be that as it
may, the contrast is very striking. The slayer is arrayed in a ball
costume, with no buckler but skill, and as if it were a pastime: he is
all coolness, the beast all rage; and time it is to be collected, for
now indeed knowledge is power, and could the beast reason, the man would
have small chance. Meanwhile the spectators are wound up to a greater
pitch of madness than the poor bull, who has undergone a long torture,
besides continued excitement: he at this instant becomes a study for a
Paul Potter; his eyes flash fire--his inflated nostrils snort fury; his
body is covered with sweat and foam, or crimsoned with a glaze of gore
streaming from gaping wounds. “_Mira! que bel cuerpo de sangre!_--look!
what a beauteous body of blood!” exclaimed the worthy old lady, who, as
we before mentioned, was kind enough to point out to our inexperience
the tit bits of the treat, the pearls of greatest price.
[Sidenote: CHARACTERS OF BULLS.]
There are several sorts of _toros_, whose characters vary no less than
those of men: some are brave and dashing, others are slow and heavy,
others sly and cowardly. The _matador_ foils and plays with the bull
until he has discovered his disposition. The fundamental principle
consists in the animal’s mode of attack, the stooping his head and
shutting his eyes, before he butts; the secret of mastering him lies in
distinguishing whether he acts on the offensive or defensive. Those
which are fearless, and rush boldly on at once, closing their eyes, are
the most easy to kill; those which are cunning--which seldom go straight
when they charge, but stop, dodge, and run at the man, not the flag, are
the most dangerous. The interest of the spectators increases in
proportion as the peril is great.
Although fatal accidents do not often occur (and we ourselves have never
seen a man killed, yet we have beheld some hundred bulls despatched),
such events are always possible. At Tudela, a bull having killed
seventeen horses, a picador named Blanco, and a banderillero, then leapt
over the barriers, where he gored to death a peasant, and wounded many
others. The newspapers simply headed the statement, “_Accidents_ have
happened.” Pepe Illo, who had received thirty-eight wounds in the wars,
died, like Nelson, the hero’s death. He was killed on the 11th of May,
1801. He had a presentiment of his death, but said that he must do his
duty.
Every _matador_ must be quick and decided. He must not let the bull run
at the flag above two or three times; the moral tension of the
multitudes is too strained to endure a longer suspense; they vent their
impatience in jeers, noises, and endeavour by every possible manner to
irritate him, and make him lose his temper, and perhaps life. Under such
circumstances, Manuel Romero, who had murdered a man, was always saluted
with cries of “_A la Plaza de Cebada_--to Tyburn.” The populace
absolutely loathe those who show the smallest white feather, or do not
brave death cheerfully.
[Sidenote: THE MEDIA LUNA.]
There are many ways of killing the bull: the principal is when the
matador receives him on his sword when charging; then the weapon, which
is held still and never thrust forward, enters just between the left
shoulder and the blade-bone; a firm hand, eye, and nerve, are essential,
since in nothing is the real fancy so fastidious as in the exact nicety
of the placing this death-wound. The bull very often is not killed at
the first effort; if not true, the sword strikes a bone, and then it is
ejected high in air by the rising neck. When the blow is true, death is
instantaneous, and the bull, vomiting forth blood, drops at the feet of
his conqueror. It is indeed the triumph of knowledge over brute force;
all that was fire, fury, passion, and life, falls in an instant, still
for ever. The gay team of mules now enter, glittering with flags, and
tinkling with bells; the dead bull is carried off at a rapid gallop,
which always delights the populace. The _matador_ then wipes the hot
blood from his sword, and bows to the spectators with admirable sang
froid, who fling their hats into the arena, a compliment which he
returns by throwing them back again (they are generally “shocking bad”
ones); when Spain was rich, a golden, or at least a silver shower was
rained down--_ces beaux jours là sont passés_; thanks to her kind
neighbour. The poverty-stricken Spaniard, however, gives all he can, and
lets the bullfighter dream the rest. As hats in Spain represent
grandeeship, so these beavers, part and parcel of themselves, are given
as symbols of their generous hearts and souls; and none but a huckster
would go into minute details of value or condition.
When a bull will not run at the fatal flag, or prays for pardon, he is
doomed to a dishonourable death, as no true Spaniard begs for his own
life, or spares that of his foe, when in his power; now the _media Luna_
is yelled for, and the call implies insult; the use is equivalent to
shooting traitors in the back: this _half moon_ is the precise Oriental
ancient and cruel instrument of houghing cattle; moreover it is the
exact old Iberian bident, or a sharp steel crescent placed on a long
pole. The cowardly blow is given from behind; and when the poor beast is
crippled by dividing the sinew of his leg, and crawls along in agony, an
assistant pierces with a pointed dagger the spinal marrow, which is the
usual method of slaughtering cattle in Spain by the butcher. To perform
all these vile operations is considered beneath the dignity of the
_matador_; some, however, will kill the bull by plunging the point of
their sword in the vertebræ, as the danger gives dignity to the
difficult feat.
[Sidenote: CONCLUSION OF BULL-FIGHT.]
Such is a single bull-fight; each of which is repeated eight times with
succeeding bulls, the excitement of the multitude rising with each
indulgence; after a short collapse new desires are roused by fresh
objects, the fierce sport is renewed, which night alone can extinguish;
nay, often when royalty is present, a ninth bull is clamoured for, which
is always graciously granted by the nominal monarch’s welcome sign, the
pulling his royal ear; in truth here the mob is autocrat, and his
majesty the many will take no denial; the bull-fight terminates when the
day dies like a dolphin, and the curtain of heaven hung over the bloody
show, is incarnadined and crimsoned; this glorious finish is seen in
full perfection at Seville, where the _plaza_ from being unfinished is
open toward the cathedral, which furnishes a Moorish distance to the
picturesque foreground. On particular occasions this side is decorated
with flags. When the blazing sun setting on the red Giralda tower,
lights up its fair proportions like a pillar of fire, the refreshing
evening breeze springs up, and the flagging banners wave in triumph over
the concluding spectacle; then when all is come to an end, as all things
human must, the congregation depart, with rather less decorum than if
quitting a church; all hasten to sacrifice the rest of the night to
Bacchus and Venus, with a passing homage to the knife, should critics
differ too hotly on the merits of some particular thrust of the
bull-fight.
To conclude; the minds of men, like the House of Commons in 1802, are
divided on the merits of the bull-fight; the Wilberforces assert
(especially foreigners, who, notwithstanding, seldom fail to sanction
the arena by their presence) that all the best feelings are
blunted--that idleness, extravagance, cruelty, and ferocity are promoted
at a vast expense of human and animal life by these pastimes; the
Windhams contend that loyalty, courage, presence of mind, endurance of
pain, and contempt of death, are inculcated--that, while the theatre is
all illusion, the opera all effeminacy, these manly, national games are
all truth, and in the words of a native eulogist “elevate the soul to
those grandiose actions of valour and heroism which have long proved the
Spaniards to be the best and bravest of all nations.”
[Sidenote: PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT.]
The efficacy of such sports for sustaining a martial spirit was
disproved by the degeneracy of the Romans at the time when bloody
spectacles were most in vogue; nor are bravery and humanity the
characteristics of the bull-fighting Spaniards in the collective. We
ourselves do not attribute their “merciless skivering and skewering,”
their flogging and murdering women, to the bull-fight, the practical
result of which has been overrated and misunderstood. Cruel it
undoubtedly is, and perfectly congenial to the inherent, inveterate
ferocity of Iberian character, but it is an effect rather than a
cause--with doubtless some reciprocating action; and it may be
questioned, whether the _original_ bull-fight had not a greater tendency
to humanise, than the Olympic games; certainly the _Fiesta real_ of the
feudal ages combined the associated ideas of religion and loyalty, while
the chivalrous combat nurtured a nice sense of personal honour and a
respectful gallantry to women, which were unknown to the polished Greeks
or warlike Romans; and many of the finest features of Spanish character
have degenerated since the discontinuance of the original fight, which
was more bloody and fatal than the present one.
The Spaniards invariably bring forward our boxing-matches in
self-justification, as if a _tu quoque_ could be so; but it must always
be remembered in our excuse that these are discountenanced by the good
and respectable, and legally stigmatised as breaches of the peace;
although disgraced by beastly drunkenness, brutal vulgarity, ruinous
gambling and betting, from which the Spanish arena is exempt, as no bull
yet has been backed to kill so many horses or not; our matches, however,
are based on a spirit of _fair play_ which forms no principle of the
Punic politics, warfare, or bull-fighting of Spain. The Plaza there is
patronised by church and state, to whom, in justice, the responsibility
of evil consequences must be referred. The show is conducted with great
ceremonial, combining many elements of poetry, the beautiful and
sublime; insomuch that a Spanish author proudly says: “When the
countless assembly is honoured by the presence of our august monarchs,
the world is _lost in admiration_ at the majestic spectacle afforded by
the happiest people in the world, enjoying with rapture an exhibition
peculiarly their own, and offering to their idolised sovereigns the due
homage of the truest and most refined loyalty;” and it is impossible to
deny the magnificent _coup d’œil_ of the assembled thousands. Under
such conflicting circumstances, we turn away our eyes during moments of
painful detail which are lost in the poetical ferocity of the whole, for
the interest of the tragedy of real death is undeniable, irresistible,
and all absorbing.
[Sidenote: PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT.]
The Spaniards seem almost unconscious of the cruelty of those details
which are most offensive to a stranger. They are reconciled by habit, as
we are to the bleeding butchers’ shops which disfigure our gay streets,
and which if seen for the first time would be inexpressibly disgusting.
The feeling of the chase, that remnant of the savage, rules in the
arena, and mankind has never been nice or tender-hearted in regard to
the sufferings of animals, when influenced by the destructive
propensities. In England no sympathy is shown for game,--fish, flesh, or
fowl; nor for vermin--stoats, kites, or poachers. The end of the sport
is--death; the amusement is the _playing_, the _fine_ run, as the
prolongation of animal suffering is termed in the tender vocabulary of
the Nimrods; the pang of mortal sufferance is not regulated by the size
of the victim; the bull moreover is always put at once out of his
misery, and never exposed to the thousand lingering deaths of the poor
wounded hare; therefore we must not see a toro in Spanish eyes and wink
at the fox in our own, nor
“Compound for vices we’re inclined to
By damning those we have no mind to.”
It is not clear that animal suffering on the whole predominates over
animal happiness. The bull roams in ample pastures, through a youth and
manhood free from toil, and when killed in the plaza only anticipates by
a few months the certain fate of the imprisoned, over-laboured,
mutilated ox.
In Spain, where capital is scanty, person and property insecure (evils
not quite corrected since the late democratic reforms), no one would
adventure on the speculation of breeding cattle on a large scale, where
the return is so distant, without the certain demand and sale created by
the amphitheatre; and as a small proportion only of the produce possess
the requisite qualifications, the surplus and females go to the plough
and market, and can be sold cheaper from the profit made on the bulls.
Spanish political economists _proved_ that many valuable animals were
wasted in the arena--but their theories vanished before the fact, that
the supply of cattle was rapidly diminished when bull-fights were
suppressed. Similar results take place as regards the breed of horses,
though in a minor degree; those, moreover, which are sold to the Plaza
would never be bought by any one else. With respect to the loss of human
life, in no land is a man worth so little as in Spain; and more English
aldermen are killed indirectly by turtles, than Andalucian picadors
directly by bulls; while, as to _time_, these exhibitions always take
place on holidays, which even industrious Britons bouse away
occasionally in pothouses, and idle Spaniards invariably smoke out in
sunshiny _dolce far niente_. The attendance, again, of idle spectators
prevents idleness in the numerous classes employed directly and
indirectly in getting up and carrying out this expensive spectacle.
[Sidenote: PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT.]
It is poor and illogical philosophy to judge of foreign customs by our
own habits, prejudices, and conventional opinions; a cold, unprepared,
calculating stranger comes without the freemasonry of early
associations, and criticises minutiae which are lost on the natives in
their enthusiasm and feeling for the whole. He is horrified by details
to which the Spaniards have become as accustomed as hospital nurses,
whose finer sympathetic emotions of pity are deadened by repetition.
A most difficult thing it is to change long-established usages and
customs with which we are familiar from our early days, and which have
come down to us connected with many fond remembrances. We are slow to
suspect any evil or harm in such practices; we dislike to look the
evidence of facts in the face, and shrink from a conclusion which would
require the abandonment of a recreation, which we have long regarded as
innocent, and in which we, as well as our parents before us, have not
scrupled to indulge. Children, _l’age sans pitié_, do not speculate on
cruelty, whether in bull-baiting or bird’s-nesting, and Spaniards are
brought up to the bull-fight from their infancy, when they are too
simple to speculate on abstract questions, but associate with the Plaza
all their ideas of reward for good conduct, of finery and holiday; in a
land where amusements are few--they catch the contagion of pleasure, and
in their young bias of imitation approve of what is approved of by their
parents. They return to their homes unchanged--playful, timid, or
serious, as before; their kindly, social feelings are uninjured: and
where is the filial or parental bond more affectionately cherished than
in Spain--where are the noble courtesies of life, the kind, considerate,
self-respecting demeanour so exemplified as in Spanish society?
[Sidenote: PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT.]
The successive feelings experienced by most foreigners are admiration,
compassion, and weariness of the flesh. The first will be readily
understood, as it will that the horses’ sufferings cannot be beheld by
novices without compassion: “In troth it was more a pittie than a
delight,” wrote the herald of Lord Nottingham. This feeling, however,
regards the animals who are forced into wounds and death; the men
scarcely excite much of it, since they willingly court the danger, and
have therefore no right to complain. These heroes of low life are
applauded, well paid, and their risk is more apparent than real; our
British feelings of fair play make us side rather with the poor bull who
is overmatched; we respect the gallantry of his unequal defence. Such
must always be the effect produced on those not bred and brought up to
such scenes. So Livy relates that, when the gladiatorial shows were
first introduced by the Romans into Asia, the natives were more
frightened than pleased, but by leading them on from sham-fights to
real, they became as fond of them as the Romans. The predominant
sensation experienced by ourselves was _bore_, the same thing over and
over again, and too much of it. But that is the case with everything in
Spain, where processions and professions are interminable. The younger
Pliny, who was no amateur, complained of the eternal sameness of seeing
what to have seen once, was enough; just as Dr. Johnson, when he
witnessed a horse-race, observed that he had not met with such a proof
of the paucity of human pleasures as in the popularity of such a
spectacle. But the life of Spaniards is uniform, and their sensations,
not being blunted by satiety, are intense. Their bull-fight to them is
always new and exciting, since the more the toresque intellect is
cultivated the greater the capacity for enjoyment; they see a thousand
minute beauties in the character and conduct of the combatants, which
escape the superficial unlearned glance of the uninitiated.
[Sidenote: PHILOSOPHY OF THE BULL-FIGHT.]
Spanish ladies, against whom every puny scribbler shoots his petty
barbed arrow, are relieved from the infliction of ennui, by the
never-flagging, ever-sustained interest, in being admired. They have no
abstract nor Pasiphaic predilections; they were taken to the bull-fight
before they knew their alphabet, or what love was. Nor have we heard
that it has ever rendered them particularly cruel, save and except some
of the elderly and tougher lower-classed females. The younger and more
tender scream and are dreadfully affected in all real moments of danger,
in spite of their long familiarity. Their grand object, after all, is
not to see the bull, but to let themselves and their dresses be seen.
The better classes generally interpose their fans at the most painful
incidents, and certainly show no want of sensibility. The lower orders
of females, as a body, behave quite as respectably as those of other
countries do at executions, or other dreadful scenes, where they crowd
with their babies. The case with English ladies is far different. They
have heard the bull-fight not praised from _their_ childhood, but
condemned; they see it for the first time when grown up; curiosity is
perhaps their leading feature in sharing an amusement, of which they
have an indistinct idea that pleasure will be mixed with pain. The first
sight delights them; a flushed, excited cheek, betrays a feeling that
they are almost ashamed to avow; but as the bloody tragedy proceeds,
they get frightened, disgusted, and disappointed. Few are able to sit
out more than one course, and fewer ever re-enter the amphitheatre--
“The heart that is soonest awake to the flower
Is always the first to be touched by the thorn.”
Probably a Spanish woman, if she could be placed in precisely the same
condition, would not act very differently, and something of a similar
test would be to bring her, for the first time, to an English
boxing-match. Be this as it may, far from us and from our friends be
that frigid philosophy, which would infer that their bright eyes,
darting the shafts of Cupid, will glance one smile the less from
witnessing these more merciful _banderillas_.
[Sidenote: SPANISH AMUSEMENTS.]