Jarama the Bull and Maghreb the Lion

Chapter 3 provides a biogeography of Maghreb the lion and Jarama the bull. The collection of poems in The Amphitheater of Philip the Great describes a day of animal spectacle, focusing on the staged combat between Jarama and Maghreb. The poems celebrate the bull as classical hero and Philip IV as imperial hunter. After Jarama killed Maghreb, the poets in the collection depict the fighting bull as Spain’s own species and as the only wild animal in the world that was still to be dominated. They describe Philip IV’s final execution of the bull before the public as the spectacle’s glorious climax. The group of poets in The Amphitheater of Philip the Great represent the imperial literary elite who sought to forge collective identities of Europe and Spain, as well as in terms of race.