The third stanza is composed of twenty
lines. Every other line (up until the last four
lines) repeats the now-familiar italicized refrain.
The speaker says that a wheeled casket will
become the matador’s bed. Sepulchral music
will sound for him. The bull gores through the
matador’s head. Everyone is filled with grief.
Rotting flesh will ensue and the bull’s horn now
attacks the matador’s groin. The man’s wounds
are on fire. The people in the bullring are in
agony. Notably, this stanza seems to presage the
funeral before returning to the actual goring, as is
evidenced by the mention of the casket in future
tense and the mention of the goring in present
tense. In the fourth-to-last line of the stanza, line
1 is repeated without italics. In the next line, the
speaker references the time again, calling it
deadly. The penultimate line of the stanza also
references the time, stating that each and every
clock showed the same exact time. In the last line
of the stanza, the speaker yet again repeats the
time, noting that it exists in the dimness of the
late day.
- The Spilled Blood
The opening stanza in the second section is one
line in which the speaker refuses to look at some-
thing. In the next three-line stanza it becomes
clear that that thing is blood. The speaker wishes
for moonlight so he does not have to see it.
For the first time, the speaker identifies the
gored man as Ignacio. It is specifically Ignacio’s
blood that the speaker does not wish to see. The
poem repeats the one-line stanza. In the follow-
ing four-line stanza, the speaker talks of the
moon and of an animal made of clouds, of the
bullring cast into shadow like a fantasy, with
plants growing around the ring. The section’s
first stanza is then repeated once more. In the
sixth stanza (also three lines) of the section, the
speaker asks that his recollection be allowed to
light on fire and warn the flowers of a small
blankness. Again, the first stanza appears in the
refrain.
The section’s eighth stanza is eleven lines. A
cow from olden times moves her depressed
tongue over blood splattered onto the ground.
Ancient statues of bulls, though made of granite,
are also made of death. They howl like two hun-
dred years that have wandered the planet. The
speaker repeats the sentiments of the refrain,
albeit in a slightly different manner. The exact
refrain is then repeated, though no longer as its
own stanza.
Ignacio walks with his fatality weighing
down on him. He looked for the morning, but
it no longer exists for him. He looks for his
courageous outline, but it is an illusion that con-
fuses him. He looks for his perfect form and
instead finds his mutilated body. The refrain
appears in the middle of the stanza. The speaker
describes the blood he does not want to look at,
the lessening flow from the matador’s body
lighting up the stadium—its chairs, levels, and
the crowd. The speaker asks who demands that
he come closer and says he should not be asked
to look.
The next lengthy stanza relates how Ignacio
stared death in the face, keeping his eyes open as
the bull attacked. Ancient herd keepers and
heavenly bulls were awakened by furtive speak-
ers. No royalty was equal to the matador in
battle or compassion. The matador was as
powerful as a multitude of lions, built like a
statue. He was charming, smart, and funny,
and a great matador. He was also humble, farm-
ing his own land. He was the life of the party.
Even his death was astounding.
In the section’s final stanza, the speaker says
that the matador now slumbers forever. The soil
will devour him and his blood will resonate in all
the land, flowing over the bulls without souls,
like a depressed tongue. It will flow into a puddle
of torture near the Gaudalquivir River in Spain.
Spain is a blank divider and sadness is a dark
bull. Ignacio’s blood is rigid. His veins are like
songbirds. The refrain appears. The speaker says
that no cup can hold the matador’s blood. Birds
cannot taste it, light cannot temper it. Music and
flowers cannot envelop it or gild it. The refrainMEDIA
ADAPTATIONS A dance performance based on ‘‘Lament for
Ignacio Sa ́nchez Mejı ́as’’ was first staged by
the Limon Dance Company in New York
City in 1946. The company staged a revival
in 2006.Lament for Ignacio Sa ́nchez Mejı ́as