This was a picture of those sports of the arena in
which the Minoan and Mycenaean monarchs evidently took such delight,
and in which the main figures were great bulls and toreadors. In
this case the picture is one of three toreadors, two girls and
a boy, with a single bull. The girls are distinguished by their
white skins, their more vari-coloured costumes, their blue and
red diadems, and their curlier hair, but are otherwise dressed
like their male companion. In the centre of the picture the great
bull is seen in full charge. The boy toreador has succeeded in
catching the monster's horns and turning a clean somersault over
his back, while one of the girls holds out her hands to catch his
as he comes to the ground. But the other girl, standing in front
of the bull, is just at the critical moment of the cruel sport.
The great horns are almost passing under her arms, and it looks
almost an even chance whether she will be able to catch them and
vault, as her companion has done, over the bull's back, or whether
she will fail and be gored to death. With such a sport, in which
life or death depended upon an instant, in which a slip of the
foot, a misjudgment of distance, or a wavering of hand or eye meant
horrible destruction, we may be sure that the tragedies of the
Minoan bull-ring were many and terrible, and that the fair dames
of the Knossian Palace, modern in costume and appearance as they
seem to us, were as habituated to scenes of cruel bloodshed as
any Roman lady who watched the sports of the Colosseum, and saw
gladiators hack one another to pieces for her pleasure.
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