The Blood of the Arena

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

The idea that bull-fighting as we know it is an ancient sport is nothing but a tremendous lie. They killed wild beasts in Spain for the diversion of the people but bull-fighting did not then exist as it is known to-day. The Cid speared bulls skilfully and Christian and Moorish gentlemen diverted themselves in the bull-ring, but bull-fighting as a profession did not exist nor did they send the animals to a noble death according to rules.

The doctor related the history of the national sport for centuries past. Only on rare occasions, when kings married, when a treaty of peace was signed, or a chapel in a cathedral was dedicated, were such events as bull-fights celebrated. There was no regularity in the repetition of these feasts, nor were there any professional fighters. Titled gentlemen dressed in costumes of silks went into the bull-ring mounted on their chargers to spear the beast, or to fight it with lances before the eyes of the ladies. If the bull managed to throw them off their horses they drew their swords, and with the assistance of their lackeys put it to death, wounding it wherever they could, without conforming to any rules. When the corrida was for the people the multitude descended into the arena, attacking the bull en masse until they succeeded in routing it, killing it by dagger thrusts.

"Bull-fights did not exist," continued the doctor. "That was hunting wild cattle. In fact, the people had other occupations, and reckoned on other sports peculiar to their epoch, and did not need to perfect this diversion."

The warlike Spaniard had a sure means of making his career in his incessant wars in divers parts of Europe, and the exploration of the Americas always called for valiant men. Moreover, religion afforded frequent emotional spectacles, full of the thrill provided by the sight of suffering in others by which indulgences for the soul could be obtained. The sentences pronounced by the Inquisition and the burning of human beings at the stake were spectacles that took away interest in games with mere wild animals. The Inquisition became the great national festival.

"But there came a day," continued Doctor Ruiz with a fine smile, "in which the Inquisition began to lose ground. Everything comes to an end in this world. It finally died of old age, long before the reform statutes suppressed it. It wore itself out; the world had changed and such diversions became something like what a bull-fight in Norway would be among the snows and beneath the gloomy sky. They lacked atmosphere. They began to be ashamed of burning men, with all the pomp of sermons, ridiculous vestures, and recantations. They no longer dared pass Inquisition sentences. When it was necessary to show that it still existed they contented themselves with beatings given behind closed doors. At the same time we Spaniards, weary of roving over the world in search of adventure, began to stay at home. There were no longer wars in Flanders or in Italy; the conquest of America, with its continual embarkation of adventurers, terminated, and then it was that the art of bull-fighting began, that permanent plazas were constructed and cuadrillas of professional bull-fighters were formed; the game was adjusted to rules, and the feats of banderillas and of killing, as we know them to-day, were recognized. The multitude found the sport much to its liking. Bull-fighting became democratic when it was converted into a profession. Gentlemen were substituted by plebians who demanded pay for exposing their lives, and the people flocked to the bull-rings of their own free will, and dared to insult from their seats in the plaza the very authority which inspired their terror in the streets. The sons of those who had frequented with religious and intense enthusiasm the burning of heretics and the baiting of Jews gave themselves up to witnessing, with noisy shouts, the struggle between the man and the bull, in which only occasionally death comes to the man. Is this not progress?"

Ruiz insisted on his idea. In the middle of the eighteenth century when Spain retired within herself, renouncing distant wars, and new colonizations, and when religious cruelty languished for lack of atmosphere, then was the time when bull-fighting flourished forth. Popular heroism needed new heights to scale for notoriety and fortune. The ferocity of the multitude, accustomed to orgies of death, needed a safety valve to give expansion to its soul, educated for centuries to the contemplation of torture. The Order of the Inquisition was replaced by the bull-fight. He who a century before would have been a soldier in Flanders, or a military colonizer in the solitudes of the New World, became a bull-fighter. The people, finding their avenues of expansion closed, saw in the new national sport a glorious opening for all the ambitious ones who had valor and courage.

"It was progress!" continued the doctor. "That seems clear to me. So I, who am revolutionary in everything, am not ashamed to say I like the bulls. Man needs a spice of wickedness to enliven the monotony of existence. Alcohol is bad also and we know it does us harm, but nearly all of us drink it. A little savagery now and then gives one new energy to go on living. We all like to take a look into the past once in a while and live the life of our remote ancestors. Brutality renews those mysterious inner forces that it is not well to let die. You say bull-fights are barbarous? So they are; but they are not the only barbarous sport in the world. The turning to violent and savage joys is a human ailment that all people suffer equally. For that reason I am indignant when I see foreigners turn contemptuous eyes on Spain, as if such things only existed here."

And the doctor railed against horse-races, in which many more men are killed than in bull-fights; against fox hunting with trained dogs, witnessed by civilized spectators; against many modern games out of which the champions come with broken legs, fractured skulls, or flattened noses; against the duel, fought in the majority of cases without other cause than an unhealthy desire for publicity.

"The bull and the horse," railed Ruiz, "bring to tears the very people that don't raise the slightest outcry in their own countries when they see a racing animal fall in the hippodrome, ruptured, or with broken legs, the very people who think the establishment of a zoölogical garden the complement to the beauty of every great city."

Doctor Ruiz was indignant because, in the name of civilization, bull-fights were anathematized as barbarous and sanguinary, while in the name of the same civilization the most useless as well as harmful animals on earth were lodged and fed and warmed in princely luxury. Why is that? Science knows them perfectly and has them catalogued. If their extermination is objected to, one must still protest against the dark tragedies that take place every day in the cages in the zoölogical parks, the goat bleating piteously as he is thrust defenceless into the panther's den, to be crushed to death by the wild beast burying his claws in the victim's entrails, and his chops in his steaming blood; timid rabbits, torn from the mountain's fragrant peace, trembling at the breath of the boa which hypnotizes them with its eyes and winds the coils of its grotesque rings about them. Hundreds of poor animals which should be protected because of their weakness die to sustain absolutely useless ferocious wild beasts that are kept and feasted in cities which boast of belonging to the higher civilization; and from these same cities insults are hurled against Spanish cruelty, because brave and expert men, following rules of undisputed wisdom, kill a proud and fearful wild beast face to face, in broad day, beneath the blue heavens, in the presence of a noisy, gay-colored multitude, adding the charm of picturesque beauty to the emotion of danger. Vive Dios!