LURE OF THE BULLRING

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 11 (Supplement)

LURE OF THE BULLRING

WHAT FASCINATES THE FAN.

NOT THE SLAUGHTER OF A

MIGHTY ANIMAL

THE SKILL OF THE TOREADOR

(By MORRIS GILBERT.)

The rim of tile bullring is a burning glass, focusing the sun. The light glit.-. ters, dazzles, burns. It flattens all colours but red" and gold, until these two are all that exist in'that burnished circle—the," gold of sand, the red of cape and blood —"sangre y arena." Eyes of. ■thousands ' squint into the glare. Lips of thousands move in hysterical tumult. In the cataract of fiery heat pouring down from the sun into that bowl, it is as if the spectators, the flaming ligli£, the sky itself, were fixed in.a universal catalepsis by the. event which is going on. • Two figures, deadly of pose and intent, face each \ other in the level golden caldron. The lucid glare holds them, tense and heroic—the great bull which will die, and the man who may.Presently" they flash in movement, hinged on the whipped- lightning of a sword. The universal trance is shattered. A sense of bloody darkness tints the sunlight.

To...the Anglo-Saxon, such an episode seems far away. It emerges as something inexplicable. How can it be, people ask,'that - such practices continue? How can the killing of bulls and horses be watched zestfully by thousands? Is it not failing, diminishing in interest, losing ground as the world moves?

They point out that in Portugal the ; •.exhibition has changed,'so that now the typical Portuguese corrida is a comic show in which no. animals arc killed. They recall that in Venezuela no horses are sacrificed in the ring. They point to the present agitation in Spain to change _ this grim factor of bull- ; ■fighting. Picadores' horses are cased in ''petos'' nowadays —petos being shields or pads to protect .the horse's chest and belly. : " The petos, when introduced three seasons ago, met with loud disapproval. . They not only failed to save the horses, people said, but they enhanced the risks of the hlen. They spoiled tne course of the spectacle, since in various teclinicalfvways the death of .the horses ' seemed' to be essential to the work which ; followed. ■ • If bullfighting ,werer merely a profes- .. sional exhibition, dazzling as that is, i the controversy over the petos would never amount to much. The corrida, or bullfight, could never, hold the place it . doeg hold in the life of Spain and other 7 Spanish lands. ... .-'.•'Cattle interest, "-of course; accounts .for the typical, non-professional, virtually community bullfights, current al) over Spain and Latin America. .. Tbej : are the "sand-lot" baseball games of the ' race,'.combined with' annual country ~ fairs.' They are the apex of the annual fiesta weeks in thousands of little towns and hamlets scattered through a dozen Latin countries. . The Sacramental Element. There is another causative element all tangled up; in .the Latin's' racial terest in bullfighting,'growing out of the very spirit of: Iberia. It, too, ucconnts for the curiously ornate and paradoxical spectacle of the bullring. It is a mystic —an almost sacramental —element. Indeed, the drama of killing the bull, having appeared ,in»Thessaly and other •parts of the world In ancient times, , seems actually to stem.from a. religious mystery, the mystery oflife-restoring sacrifice comman ' to - so many creeds. A popular religion of the Roman legions was Mithraism, the cult of the Persian god of light, once a potent rival of f Christianity. Its.central doctrine was the bringing of rebirth to the, world through the death, of the bull and the spilling of its-blood,. >' _ •It ifc plausible that-the . dark- fiiiaii*s •which took•.. place in Roman amphitheatres from Thessaly to the Iberian peninsula had first a clear, then aJi obscure, link with, the doctrines of Mithras. Certainly the spectacle of .today, formalised, decked in panoply, preserves for its patrons much of the quality of a cult. Its drama unfolds in a' 1 straight, archaic pattern. Its protagonists comport themselves as in a ritual. Therein lies a curious paradox, liie gross and bloody exhibition of slaughter is offered with a delicacy, a mannered and aesthetic formality which 'gives it the character of fine a'rtc It is dark, stern, fatal. It, says, "Remember death. But throughout the -spectacle the nund of the "aficionado," the bullfight fa , is not on the blood, the sufferings the horses, .the aspects revolting to the Anglo-Saxon, but on the suavity, the elegance;.-the simplicity and, directness of the torero's "faena,' his work. What the crowd' watches for, as watch for home runs, is an abstraction, the dominating of the bull, riiat is le criterion; to command that monstrous, grisly, half-ton of self-propelling am- « The bull-is a death dealer by cnrl bv breeding "He brings nature and by nreeuiu„. „ V ults him down to the size of a dog, ult ® a fan on the "sol»-the sunny side of the arena, as the matador swings the feature, moving like a catapult, round { in a semi-circle, halts it with a movement of the cape, turns his back serene y ST the wide horns and strolls away. Ru]]fi rr litiri" bas a mo3 t t.echn Ji A writer, describing the vrjrt 5 Enda or Frtg, is concerned with ?hran" S are d 'noMor tolly" brutality Tmt for skill, audacity and grace. But mostly for courage-for be snintillant. outrage™, courage .Mfce flip'stro the star performer. He comes frSe.to ,T™ S SrCs tb'e bulll witbin the "T t— "Sl*™ BurtcK, or m . tlie performer that duly dexter ty sa«s t 1 attraction of tbe " I, tbe Ward of death that tins o- thra ° ,port " '"'The'w'is aJasliion among the enemies ®| refute" the" fnshiOT. Blip may b , f Belmonte, tot matador: So go. In'- greatest m - tK , |am %h t„, d,e - d TT-f n in Columbia: Luis Luis . Mexican. was ,e JSS- rS. % tbe iu ? ■.. - ;; ■ . -

r The~ professional 'corrida Is (Erected from the palco, the box of the president of the bullfight. It starts with a trumpet blast, when the gates opposite the palco swing wide for the paseo or grand entry. There are two matadors, sometimes three. Each has his own cuadrilla, or company of helpers. By precedent, the eldest matador takes his place at the right. Banderilleros, who will plant ribboned darts, or banderillas, in the bull's shoulders, march behind them. Then come the helpers, with capes; the picadors, sinister horsemen, legs cased in armour, shoulders padded, pica, or spear, at rest. Last enters a singularly gruesome troupe — the triple team of mules, garish plumes waving at their ears—which drags the carcase *of the slain beast from the arena, as Hamlet in Elizabethan days lugged the dead Polonius from the encumbered scene. A swarm of men uniformed in blue denim j with red sashes — the monosabios ? or "wise monkeys"—drive it.

Toreros wear gold-crusted waistcoats, epaulettes, silk shirts, rich coloured breeches, tri-cornered black hat, white silk stockings and heelless slippers. The capote, or capa de lujo, the- richly embroidered dress cloak, aa luxurious as a cape, covers all, to be exchanged for the working cape or capa de faena, after the enfry.

Another trumpet blast welcomes, the bulJ. burly, fiery, grim. Played for a moment by the helpers, perhaps by a matador, he presently f.nds an enemy to kill, the horse of the picador. A picador's horse sometimes survives. One horse of "record out-rode 37 bulls and was spared at the last. But not many. The wearing down of the encihy has started. The picad.or nicks the lifting muscles of the massive neck with the epear. The first impulse of the bull's glorious strength is sped by the destruction of the horse.

At this moment, for the aficionado, the contest takes on high drama. It is the rhomerit of the "quite" when the matador and other toreros divert the bull from the tumbled welter of horse and picador. The bull has smelled blood. He has vanquished an opponent. He will never be stronger or more dangerous. His dash then must be met with coolness and skill. The quite and the cape-work thereupon are tests of the great torero. Close to the bull, body, arms and cape rippling, lie meets and evades the fury. He' slips beside the charge. Yet when the horns are past, the. cape is tangled in them still; the hot side of the creature will be slipping by the upright man, an'inch away. Recognised Plays. Numerous suertes, or of the cape, have become traditional, distinct and recognised by all enthusiasts. A few of them are the suerte de recorte, which meets the bull close, body to body, and brings him round as on a pivot; the suerte de veronica (in allusion to "Veronica'a .Veil," on which the face of Christ was printed), in which the bull ploughs directly into the cape; the suerte de farol, a graceful sweep of the cape about the matador's shoulders as the bull flashes by; the gallear, akin to the "recorte and named from the spread win<»s of the rooster —a hundred others, butferflv work, prestidigitation, dazzling, florid, yet concise. •

In these and the paeeos de muleta, which are the preparations for the kill, a torero's elegance, his dignity, his "verguenza torera," which the critic lauds, are exemplified. They demand a fluid, lithe grace and ah elegantly proportioned frame, since they are postures as of the dance. Of Rodolfo Gaona men say, "He met the bull as he would a lady in a ballroom."

A gauge of excellence is footwork —or the absence of it. The great bullfighter seeks' not to dodge an attack but to evade it by the "quiebro," a feint of tie 'body that causes the bull to swerve, not tie man. Take as an example the quiebro wbich the writer once saw Luis Freg execute. Frog had decided to plant a pair of banderillas in response to applause for a previous suerte. The bull was halt across the ring. Freg 'beckoned him, taunted him, with' the gaudy darts waving. " The bull moved forward, broke into a charge, thundered across the sand, bead down.

Freg was standing, heels -and toes together, in the classic posture. "When the impact of horns and man's 'body seemed inevitable he swayed his hips to the right and recovered. The enemy swerved, plunged by and slowed, bewildered, having lost the target. In the shoulders, planted an inch apai-t, the banderillas- hung. Freg had not moved his feet. - The Death Stroke. The matador plays the final scene not with the capa but with the lighter muleta, the plain red square of cloth capable of being flourished with one hand. Through the cloth a pointed stick runs, to spread it and for convenient holding. With it the matador carries the sword.

Thus equipped he steps before the palco or before any spectator he wishes to honour, and in formal speech and gesture recites the brindis, the salute and dedication of the bull. Now, if ever, he' must dominate. For by the play of muleta and body he must force the bull, himself, to meet the death stroke. It must not be a bungling job, and, lest it be so, the bull must share the preparation, must be brought to present a right target. The death stroke must enter at the forward conjunction of the shoulder blades beside the spine. It must sink to the hilt, downward and a little back. The target is'perhaps two square inches. The matador's arm, 'his whole body, must come over the horns to strike it.

The placing of the 'bull's front feet affects the target. They should be side by side, in a plane directly across the line of the stroke. A leg advanced may throw a shoulder blade out of line,, and thus deflect the sword. Furthermore, the bull's head must be down, but not too far.

When all this is achieved, if only for a second, comes the stroke, a volapie. It is a swift lancing of the man's body forward, the aimed sword piercing hard; then the evasion of the tossing horns.

In another rarer suerte de mater, called recibiendo —that is, "receiving"— it is the bull which charges, the man who is "planted," stock still. The suerte, by which the bull runs upon his own death, is the apex of bullfighting. Gaona and Belmonte recently retired. The one was 32, the other 30. Both had

killed their thousand and more bulls, made their one or two million pesetas, and had been feted on two continents. Among the earliest records of great bullfighters was Spaing national hero, fho Hid In the year A.D, 1040 Don Rodrigo'Diaz de Vivar killed bulls in the arena, employing a lance and attacking the animal -from horseback. Bullfighting was long the pastime of no bility? Charles V, killed a bujj on th hirthdav 6f his son, later Philip IL At the start of the eighteenth century the art became professionalised. Francisco, Romero of Ronda, an Andalusian, was the first great "espada. He substituted the sword for the garroche or spear, and brought the muleta into use. In the line of famous bullfighters were Frascuela, Lagartijo, Mazantim, El Algabenoj Fuente. Recent stars, contemporaries of Belmonte and Gaona, were Bombita, .Joselito,. Bienvenida, Ortiz. There is a new group on the scene to-day. These, # too, will make their millions, or die m the course of doing so. .Bullfighting, despite what its enemies assert, is very far, indeed, from being on the wane.