[64] A poetical version of Solomon’s Song was made, not long afterwards, by the famous Arias Montano, on the same principle. When it was first published I do not know; but it may be found in Faber’s “Floresta,” No. 717, and parts of it are beautiful. Montano died in 1598. But the University remained faithful to him. He was reinstated in all his offices, with marks of the sincerest respect, on the 30th of December, 1576; and it is a beautiful circumstance attending his restoration, that, when, for the first time, he rose before a crowded audience, eager to hear what allusion he would make to his persecutions, he began by simply saying, “As we remarked when we last met,” and then went on, as if the five bitter years of his imprisonment had been a blank in his memory, bearing no record of the cruel treatment he had suffered.[65] [65] Villanueva (Vida, Lóndres, 1825, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 340) says that all the papers relating to the inquisitorial process against Luis de Leon, including admirable answers of the accused, were found, in 1813, in the archives of the tribunal of Valladolid, but were not printed for want of means. They must be very curious documents. It seems, however, to have been thought advisable that he should vindicate his reputation from the suspicions that had been cast upon it; and therefore, in 1580, at the request of his friends, he published, in Latin, an extended commentary on the Canticles, interpreting each part in three different ways,--directly, symbolically, and mystically,--and giving the whole as theological and obscure a character as the most orthodox could desire, though still without concealing his opinion that it was originally intended to be a pastoral eclogue. Another work on the same subject, but in Spanish, and in some respects like the one that had caused his imprisonment, was also prepared by him and found among his manuscripts after his death. But it was not thought advisable to print it till 1798. Even then a version of the Canticles, in Spanish octaves, as an eclogue, intended originally to accompany it, was not added, and did not appear till 1806;--a beautiful translation, which discovers, not only its author’s power as a poet, but the remarkable freedom of his theological inquiries, in a country where such freedom was, in that age, not tolerated for an instant.[66] The fragment of a defence of this version, or of some parts of it, is dated from his prison, in 1573, and was found long afterwards among the state papers of the kingdom in the archives of Simancas.[67] [66] Luis de Leon, Obras, Tom. V. pp. 258-280. [67] Ibid., Tom. V. p. 281.