Word: matadores
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Fine Points. Few of the U.S. citizens, except established residents in Mexico, understand the fine points of the spectacle. In the first scene the peones (matador's helpers) drag their capes before the newly entered bull and flee behind the barrier as he charges. Having studied the bull's style of charging, the matador plays him with a cape, with slow, graceful passes, finally "fixes" the bull -brings him up short with an abrupt pass which ends the scene...
...does, they stick their lances in the bull's neck muscles and try to hold him off so that he cannot get at horse or man. (Object: to tire the bull's neck muscles so that he lowers his head in charging, exposing the spot which the matador must hit to kill him.) Next, the peones (or sometimes the matador) place three pairs of beribboned darts in the bull's hump (object: to excite the bull and keep him lively...
...Kill. In the third scene the matador with his sword and muleta (a red cloth draped across a stick) goes forth to the kill. The art of this work consists of the number and variety of the passes which the matador executes, how close he can let the charging bull go past him, how well he can control the bull's charges...
...very end, the matador stands in profile, aiming his sword at the tired but still dangerous bull. As the charge comes, he leans over the horns, slips the sword into the small spot between the bull's shoulder blades. If the bull tosses its head, if the man's aim is not true, if he loses his nerve, he misses. The sword may be tossed in the air, perhaps bent from the force of the bull's charge. Then the matador must take another sword and steel himself to try again. But if his thrust succeeds...
...three scenes take about 20 minutes. Then the next act, with another bull and another matador, begins...