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; thepicador, 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 theChuloswho 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 thePlaza,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.
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 thefun;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 thecontractor; 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 yourdisparateswith 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 flyAnd add new monsters to the frighted sky.”
“Up to the stars the growling mastiffs flyAnd add new monsters to the frighted sky.”
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 theempresa, or management, as it infers that it has furnished animals fitter for the plough than for the arena. Theindignation 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 irregularhors d’œuvres, by the real and business-like amateur.
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 theplaza. 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 thechulo, 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 thepicadorwhen 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, theretecilla—the identicalreticulum—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 thesechulosventure out into the middle of theplaza, 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. Thechulos, 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 calledbanderillas, and are ornamented with cut paper of different colours—gay decorations under which cruelty is concealed. Thebanderillerosgo 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 termedbuenos paresby the Spaniards, and the feat is calledcoifferle 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 calledbanderillas 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 abifstec à l’Espagnole, faintly recall to many a dark scowling priest the superior attractions of his former amphitheatre, theauto de fe.
The last trumpet now sounds, the arena is cleared, and thematador, 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 themuleta, the red flag, or theengaño, 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.
PREPARATION FOR EXECUTION.
Thematador, 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 thejurisdiction 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 killhimtwice 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.
CHARACTERS OF BULLS.
There are several sorts oftoros, whose characters vary no less than those of men: some are brave and dashing, others are slow and heavy, others sly and cowardly. Thematadorfoils and plays with the bull until he has discovered his disposition. Thefundamental 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, “Accidentshave 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.
Everymatadormust 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.
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. Thematadorthen 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 themedia Lunais yelled for, and the call implies insult; the use is equivalent to shooting traitors in the back: thishalf moonis 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 thematador; 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.
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 grantedby 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 theplazafrom 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.”
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 tothe 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 theoriginalbull-fight had not a greater tendency to humanise, than the Olympic games; certainly theFiesta realof 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 atu quoquecould 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 offair playwhich 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 islost in admirationat 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 magnificentcoup d’œilof 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.
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 whichdisfigure 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 theplaying, thefinerun, 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 toBy damning those we have no mind to.”
“Compound for vices we’re inclined toBy 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 economistsprovedthat 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 totime, theseexhibitions always take place on holidays, which even industrious Britons bouse away occasionally in pothouses, and idle Spaniards invariably smoke out in sunshinydolce 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.
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?
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 morea 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 wasbore, 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.
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 fromtheirchildhood, 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 flowerIs always the first to be touched by the thorn.”
“The heart that is soonest awake to the flowerIs 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 mercifulbanderillas.
SPANISH AMUSEMENTS.
Spanish Theatre; Old and Modern Drama; Arrangement of Playhouses—The Henroost—The Fandango; National Dances—A Gipsy Ball—Italian Opera—National Songs and Guitars.
Spanish Theatre; Old and Modern Drama; Arrangement of Playhouses—The Henroost—The Fandango; National Dances—A Gipsy Ball—Italian Opera—National Songs and Guitars.
THE THEATRE.
HAVINGseen a bull-fight,the sightof Spain, those who only wish to pass time agreeably cannot be too quick in getting their passports viséd for Naples. A pleasantcountrylife, according to our notions, in Spain, is a thing that is not; and the substitute is but a Bedouin Oriental makeshift existence, which, amusing enough for a spurt, will not do in the long run. Nor is life much better in thetowns; those in the inland provinces have a convent-like, dead, old-fashioned look about them, which petrifies a lively person; nay even an artist when he has finished his sketches, is ready to commit suicide from sheer Bore, the genius of the locality. Madrid itself is but an unsocial, second-rate, inhospitable city; and when the traveller has seen the Museum, been to the play, and walked on the eternal roundabout Prado, the sooner he shakes the dust off his feet the better. The maritime seaports, as in the East, from being frequented by the foreigner, are a trifle more cosmopolitan, cheerful, and amusing; but generally speaking, public amusements are rare throughout this semi-Moro land. The calm contemplation of a cigar, and thedolce far nienteofsiestosequiet indolence with unexciting twaddle, suffice; while to some nations it is a pain to be out of pleasure, to the Spaniard it is a pleasure to be out of painful exertion: existence is happiness enough of itself; and as for occupation, all desire only to do to-day what they did yesterday and will do to-morrow, that is nothing. Thus life slips away in a dreamy, listless routine, the serious business of love-making excepted; leave me, leave me, to repose and tobacco. When however awake, theAlameda, or church-show, the bull-fight, and the rendezvous, are the chief relaxations. These will be best enjoyed in the Southern provinces, the landalso of the song and dance, of bright suns and eyes, and not the largest female feet in the world.
The theatre, which forms elsewhere such an important item in passing the stranger’s evening, is at a low ebb in Spain, although, as everybody is idle, and man is not worn out by business and money-making all day, it might be supposed to be just the thing; but it is somewhat too expensive for the general poverty. Those again who for forty years have had real tragedies at home, lack that superabundance of felicity, which will pay for the luxury of fictitious grief abroad. In truth the drama in Spain was, like most other matters, the creature of an accident and of a period; patronised by the pleasure-loving Philip IV., it blossomed in the sunshine of his smile, languished when that was withdrawn, and was unable to resist the steady hostility of the clergy, who opposed this rival to their own religious spectacles and church melodramas, from which the opposition stage sprung. Nor are their primitive mediæval Mysteries yet obsolete, since we have beheld them acted in Spain at Easter time; then and there sacred subjects, grievously profaned to Protestant eyes, were gazed on by the pleased natives with too sincere and simple faith even to allow a suspicion of the gross absurdity; but everywhere in Spain, the spiritual has been materialised, and the divine degraded to the human in churches and out; the clergy attacked the stage, by denying burial to the actors when dead, who, when alive, were not allowed to call themselves “Don,” the cherished title of every Spaniard. Naturally, as no one of this self-respecting nation ever will pursue a despised profession if he can help it, few have chosen to make themselves vagabonds by Act of Parliament, nor has any Garrick or Siddons ever arisen among them to beat down prejudices by public and private virtues.
ANCIENT DRAMA.
Even in this 19th century, confessors of families forbade the women and children’s even passing through the street where “a temple of Satan” was reared; mendicant monks placed themselves near the playhouse doors at night, to warn the headlong against the bottomless pit, just as our methodists on the day of the Derby distribute tracts at turnpikes against “sweeps” and racing. The monks at Cordova succeeded in 1823 in shutting up the theatre, because the nuns of an opposite convent observed the devil and his partners dancing fandangos on the roof. Although monks have in their turn been driven off the Spanish boards, the national drama has almost made its exit with them. The genuine old stage held up the mirror to Spanish nature, and exhibited real life and manners. Its object was rather to amuse than to instruct, and like literature, its sister exponent of existing nationality, it showed in action what the picaresque novels detailed in description. In both the haughty Hidalgo was the hero; cloaked and armed with long rapier and mustachios, he stalked on the scene, made love and fought as became an old Castilian whom Charles V. had rendered the terror and the model of Europe. Spain then, like a successful beauty, took a proud pleasure in looking at herself in the glass, but now that things are altered, she blushes at beholding a portrait of her grey hairs and wrinkles; her flag is tattered, her robes are torn, and she shrinks from the humiliation of truth. If she appears on the theatre at all, it is to revive long by-gone days—to raise the Cid, the great Captain, or Pizarro, from their graves; thus blinking the present, she forms hopes for a bright future by the revival and recollections of a glorious past. Accordingly plays representing modern Spanish life and things, are scouted by pit and boxes as vulgar and misplaced; nay, even Lope de Vega is now known merely by name; his comedies are banished from the boards to the shelves of book-cases, and those for the most part out of Spain. He has paid the certain penalty of his national localism, of his portraying men, as a Spanish variety, rather than a universal species. He has strutted his hour on the stage, is heard no more; while his contemporary, the bard of Avon, who drew mankind and human nature, the same in all times and places, lives in the human heart as immortal as the principle on which his influence is founded.
MODERN STAGE.
In the old Spanish plays, the imaginary scenes were no less full of intrigue than were the real streets; then the point of honour was nice, women were immured in jealous hareems, and access to them, which is easier now, formedthedifficulty of lovers. The curiosity of the spectators was kept on tenter-hooks, to see how the parties could get at each other, and out of the consequent scrapes. These imbroglios and labyrinths exactly suited apays de l’imprévu, where things turn out, just as is the least likely to be calculated on. The progress of the drama of Spain was asfull of action and energy, as that of France was of dull description and declamation. The Bourbon succession, which ruined the genuine bull-fight, destroyed the national drama also; a flood of unities, rules, stilted nonsense, and conventionalities poured over the astonished and affrighted Pyrenees: now the stage, like the arena, was condemned by critics, whose one-idead civilization could see but one class of excellence, and that only through a lorgnette ground in the Palais Royal. Calderon was pronounced to be as great a barbarian as Shakspere, and this by empty pretenders who did not understand one word of either;—and now again, at this second Bourbon irruption, France has become the model to that very nation from whom her Corneilles and Molières pilfered many a plume, which aided them to soar to dramatic fame. Spain is now reduced to the sad shift of borrowing from her pupil, those very arts which she herself once taught, and her best comedies and farces are but poor translations from Mons. Scribe and other scribes of the vaudeville. Her theatre, like everything else, has sunk into a pale copy of her dominant neighbour, and is devoid alike of originality, interest, and nationality.
SPANISH TRAGEDY.
It was from Spain also that Europe copied the arrangement of the modern theatre; the first playhouses there were merely open covered court-yards, after the classical fashion of Thespis. Thepatiobecame thepit, into which women were never admitted. The rich sat at the windows of the houses round the court; and as almost all these in Spain are defended by iron gratings, the French took their term,loge grillée, for a private box. In the centre of the house, above the pit, was a sort of large lower gallery, which was calledla tertulia, a name given in those times to the quarter chosen by the erudite, among whom at that period it was the fashion to quoteTertulian. The women, excluded from the pit, had a place reserved for themselves, into which no males were allowed to enter—a peculiarity based in the Gotho-Moro separation of the sexes. This feminine preserve was termedla cazuela, the stewing pan, orla olla, the pipkin, from the hodgepotch admixture, as it was open to all ranks; it was also called “la jaula de las mugeres,” the women’s cage—“el gallinero,” the henroost. All went there, as to church, dressed in black, and with mantillas. This dark assemblage of sable tresses, raven hair, and blacker eyes, looked at the first glance like the gallery of a nunnery; that was, however, a simile of dissimilitude, for, let there be but a moment’s pause in the business of the play, then arose such a cooing and cawing in this rookery of turtle-doves,—such an ogling, such a flutter of mantillas, such a rustling of silks, such telegraphic workings of fans, such an electrical communication with the Señores below, who looked up with wistful glances on the dark clustering vineyard so tantalizingly placed above their reach, as effectually dispelled all ideas of seclusion, sorrow, or mortification. This unique and charming pipkin has been just now done away with at Madrid, because, as there is no such thing at Covent Garden, or Le Français, it might look antiquated and un-European.
The theatres of Spain are small, although called Coliseums, and ill-contrived; the wardrobe and properties are as scanty as those of the spectators, Madrid itself not excepted; when filled, the smells are ultra-continental, and resemble those which prevail at Paris, when the great people is indulged with a gratis representation; in the Spanish theatres no neutralizing incense is used, as is done by the wise clergy in their churches. If the atmosphere were analysed by Faraday, it would be found to contain equal portions of stale cigar smoke and fresh garlic fume. The lighting, except on those rare occasions when the theatre is illuminated, as it is called, is just intended to make darkness visible, and there was no seeing into the henroosts towards which the eyes and glasses of the foxite pittites were vainly elevated.
THE BOLERO.
Spanish tragedy, even when the Cid spouts, is wearisome; the language is stilty, the declamation ranting, French, and unnatural; passion is torn to rags. Thesainetes, or farces, are broad, but amusing, and are perfectly well acted; the national ones are disappearing, but when brought out are the true vehicles of the love for sarcasm, satire, and intrigue, the mirth and mother-wit, for which Spaniards are so remarkable; and no people are more essentially serio-comic and dramatic than they are, whether inVenta,Plaza, or church; the actors in their amusing farces cease to be actors, and the whole appears to be a scene of real life; there generally is agraciosoor favourite wag of the Liston and Keeley species, who is on the best terms with the pit, who says and does what he likes, interlards the dialoguewith his own witticisms, and creates a laugh before he even comes on.
NATIONAL DANCES.
The orchestra is very indifferent; the Spaniards are fond enough of what they call music, whether vocal or instrumental; but it is Oriental, and most unlike the exquisite melody and performances of Italy or Germany. In the same manner, although they have footed it to their rude songs from time immemorial, they have no idea of the grace and elegance of the French ballet; the moment they attempt it they become ridiculous, for they are bad imitators of their neighbours, whether in cuisine, language, or costume; indeed a Spaniard ceases to be a Spaniard in proportion as he becomes anAfrancesado; they take, in their jumpings and chirpings, after the grasshopper, having a natural genius for thebotaandbolero. The great charm of the Spanish theatres is their own national dance—matchless, unequalled, and inimitable, and only to be performed by Andalucians. This isla salsa de la comedia, the essence, the cream, thesauce piquanteof the night’s entertainments; it isattemptedto be described in every book of travels—for who can describe sound or motion?—it must be seen. However languid the house, laughable the tragedy, or serious the comedy, the sound of the castanet awakens the most listless; the sharp, spirit-stirring click is heard behind the scenes—the effect is instantaneous—it creates life under the ribs of death—it silences the tongues of countless women—on n’écoute que le ballet. The curtain draws up; the bounding pair dart forward from the opposite sides, like two separated lovers, who, after long search, have found each other again, nor do they seem to think of the public, but only of each other; the glitter of the gossamer costume of theMajoandMajaseems invented for this dance—the sparkle of the gold lace and silver filigree adds to the lightness of their motions; the transparent, form designingsayaof the lady, heightens the charms of a faultless symmetry which it fain would conceal; no cruel stays fetter her serpentine flexibility. They pause—bend forward an instant—prove their supple limbs and arms; the band strikes up, they turn fondly towards each other, and start into life. What exercise displays the ever-varying charms of female grace, and the contours of manly form, like this fascinating dance? The accompaniment of the castanet gives employment to theirupraised arms.C’est, say the French,le pantomime d’amour. The enamoured youth persecutes the coy, coquettish maiden; who shall describe the advance—her timid retreat, his eager pursuit, like Apollo chasing Daphne? Now they gaze on each other, now on the ground; now all is life, love, and action; now there is a pause—they stop motionless at a moment, and grow into the earth. It carries all before it. There is a truth which overpowers the fastidious judgment. Away, then, with the studied grace of the French danseuse, beautiful but artificial, cold and selfish as is the flicker of her love, compared to the real impassionedabandonof the daughters of the South! There is nothing indecent in this dance; no one is tired or the worse for it; indeed its only fault is its being too short, for as Molière says, “Un ballet ne saurait être trop long, pourvu que la morale soit bonne, et la métaphysique bien entendue.” Notwithstanding this most profound remark, the Toledan clergy out of mere jealousy wished to put the bolero down, on the pretence of immorality. The dancers were allowed in evidence to “give a view” to the court: when they began, the bench and bar showed symptoms of restlessness, and at last, casting aside gowns and briefs, both joined, as if tarantula-bitten, in the irresistible capering—Verdict, for the defendants with costs.
ThisBaile nacional, however adored by foreigners, is, alas! beginning to be looked down upon by those ill-advised señoras who wear French bonnets in the boxes, instead of Spanish mantillas. The dance is suspected of not being European or civilized; its best chance of surviving is, the fact that it is positively fashionable on the boards of London and Paris. These national exercises are however firmly rooted among the peasants and lower classes. The different provinces, as they have a different language, costume, &c., have also their own peculiar local dances, which, like their wines, fine arts, relics, saints and sausages, can only be really relished on the spots themselves.