A Load of Bull

Last year, a rather young bull, Junior, spent some quality time with my cows with predictable results. Junior then resumed his duties with his rightful owner. Our pasture is graced this year with Oscar, who dwarfs Junior and the 1300-lb. cows. Oscar seems like a very agreeable bull. He stepped off the trailer, ignoring me holding the gate, and ambled over to the cows.

Cows get acquainted pretty much the same way dogs do. (Imagine not having to buy dinner or engage in witty repartee.) Oscar paced the circumference of the pasture, taking inventory, and then bellowed his presence to anything for miles around that might be foolish enough to challenge his dominion.

So far, the goats and dogs come and go through that pasture undeterred by Oscar, and I venture in as necessary. Oscar is not terribly interested in any of us, although I remain wary enough not to walk out to the middle of the pasture and call him out.

Naturally an article on bullfighting caught my attention.

Bullfighting is an exquisite art – a three-act drama of form, grace, skill and brutality. One particular fight, between the matador known as El Cid and Borgoñés, a 4-year old bull, is described in detail by Alexander Fiske-Harrison in Prospect Magazine.

For a brief moment, following the increasing display of risk and skill in the veronicas, we are given the sight of the man, stationary, in the midst of a circling fury, wearing this great beast like a belt, the crowd cheering, until Borgoñés, driven by his own momentum out of the charge, is drawn to a halt by attempting to turn in a distance shorter than his own body length.

Fiske-Harrison contrasts the current crusade against bullfighting as concerned entirely with the welfare of the bull. In contrast, Pope Pius V’s edict of 1567 called for a ban on bullfighting for the benefit of the souls of those involved.

So what persuaded me to go to my first bullfight, also at Seville, some ten years ago when I was 21? Well, a love of art, an admiration for courage and a recognition of mortality and the grim realities of our dealings with animals. (I should add that I have seen bullfights which have horrified me, and ones which have left me asking, in Byron’s words, whether it is just that my “heart delights/In vengeance, gloating on another’s pain.”)

It’s a worthwhile read.

Just to stand in Oscar’s presence will give you an enormous respect for the animal and for the courage of the bullfighter. Fortunately, Oscar has an easier time than Borgoñés, and I have a far easier time than El Cid.

Photo by siyublog (Creative Commons)