AN HISTORIC PHRASE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6632, 11 June 1928, Page 12

AN HISTORIC PHRASE

SPANISH POET’S CENTENARY. Among tho centenaries which fell this year, tho birth of Luis Ponce de Leon seems to have been forgotten. Yet, says a London paper, he deserves to bo remembered if only for one speech. Leon was a Spanish poet who became a monk. At 34, he became a professor at Salananca, the great university founded in 1243 by a king of Castle, and now falling into poverty and decay. For tho crime of translating the Song of Songs into Castilian, the Spanish Inquisition condemned the poet monk to four years’ imprisonment. At tho end of his term, Leon was permitted to resume the post at the university, which he held till his death in 1591. When he gave the first lecture after his release from prison, tho hall was crowded with students eager to see what attitude ho would take up and to hear what he would say in his wrath. Breathlessly they waited for the opening sentence, and he began: “Gentlemen, as we were saying the other day—” That great sentence has outlived Leon, outlived the Spanish Inquisition, and almost outlived Salamanca University, which has dwindled from 5000 to 400 students.