It is not a sport or a spectacle. The matador does not “win” the fight. It is a ritual culminating in the solemn execution of that wild animal. Hemingway spoke of “grace under pressure” : the matador has to stand still with the animal raging all around him.

The matador has to tire the bull out. The bull has to lower his head and stand still to be killed. The dance and the play are only to prepare for the moment of truth, the kill, the moment of greatest danger. In his death the bull might throw up its head and wound the matador, in the past often lethally, until Fleming invented penicillin in 1940.

Normally, in a corrida there are three matadors and six bulls. Each matador kills two bulls that have to be at least four years old. If there is no cheating, things often go wrong even now :

Hemingway said that the bullfight made death look grotesque. Children of course often see it that way. The drawings are by Goya.

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Before the fight begins the matador often dedicates a bull to a famous individual who sits in the front row. The statue at the Madrid bullring is a matador who dedicates his bull to Sir Alexander Fleming:

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