The bullfight is not a sport in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word, that is, it is not an equal contest or an attempt at an equal contest between a bull and a man. Rather it is a tragedy; the death of the bull, which is played more or less well, by the bull and the man involved and in which there is danger for the man but certain death for the animal. So I went to Spain to see bullfights and to try and write about them for myself. I thought they would be simple and barbarous and cruel and that I would not like them, but that I would see certain definite action which would give me the feeling of life and death that I was working for. I found the definite action; but the bullfight was so far from simple and I liked it so much that it was much too complicated for my then equipment for I was not able to write anything about it for five years -- and I wish I would
have waited ten.
Ernest Hemingway
