Arsileo and Arsenio Mistaken for Dead

Arsileo and Arsenio’s apparent deaths turn Belisa’s love story into a tragedy of mistaken identity, then reverse that tragedy when the scene is exposed as a magical deception. Belisa sees what seems to be Arsileo struck down and his father kill himself in remorse; believing both dead, she abandons her home and withdraws from human company. Only later does Arsileo explain that Alfeo staged the encounter with spirits, and Polidora brings Belisa the news that the men she mourns are alive.

The Meeting and Its Stakes

Before the apparent deaths, Belisa’s affections are entangled with the attentions of both Arsileo and his father, Arsenio. Arsileo courts her with letters, sonnets, and songs accompanied by his harp; she comes to understand that his love is mutual with hers. Meanwhile, Arsenio presses his own suit with messages and gifts. Belisa receives his attentions even as her attachment to his son grows, describing the two affections as different in kind. The situation makes secrecy difficult: Arsenio repeatedly watches the street near her home, although Belisa later says she failed to remember this danger on the night in question.

Belisa and Arsileo arrange to meet after dark in her father’s garden. He is to climb a mulberry tree opposite the window of her room so they can speak at close range. The plan is unnecessary in one sense—Arsileo already speaks with her on many days in the fields, by the river, among the groves, and as she takes her cattle out or brings them back—but the secret appointment creates the vulnerable scene on which the deception depends. Arsenio comes upon them without their seeing or hearing him. He recognizes Belisa at the window but does not realize that the figure in the tree is his son.

The Apparent Double Death

In Belisa’s first account, Arsenio leaves in anger, arms a crossbow with an arrow coated in poisonous herb, and returns to the garden. The arrow strikes the person in the tree through the heart. As he falls, the wounded figure speaks Belisa’s name and laments having so little opportunity to serve her. Arsenio recognizes his son’s voice, approaches, and sees that Arsileo is dead. In despair at having killed his own child, he draws his sword and stabs himself through the heart. The sequence appears to leave both father and son dead within moments, while Belisa watches.

The scene’s force lies in how quickly a hidden meeting becomes an irreversible catastrophe. Belisa does not merely hear a report: she believes she has seen the fatal arrow, Arsileo’s fall, Arsenio’s recognition, and his suicide. She reproaches herself for having placed Arsileo in danger, though she also recalls that their ordinary meetings offered many safer chances to speak. Her grief includes both men. She mourns Arsileo as the beloved she has lost, but also remembers Arsenio’s goodness toward her, his devotion, and the sleepless nights he spent in her service. She admits that, had Arsileo never come to the region, she might have married Arsenio. The apparent deaths thus destroy not a simple love triangle but a set of affections she had never fully resolved.

Alfeo’s Deception Revealed

The later explanation changes the meaning of everything Belisa saw. Arsileo tells Felismena that Alfeo, a reputed necromancer who had loved Belisa before Arsenio began courting her, learned of the planned meeting. Belisa could not bear Alfeo’s presence and had shown him no affection. Resenting her love for Arsileo, Alfeo used two spirits to make the encounter appear real: one took Arsileo’s form and went to the meeting; the other took Arsenio’s form, shot the first figure with a crossbow, then acted as a father who recognized his son and killed himself in grief.

The deception was directed at Belisa’s perception and at the consequences of her belief. Alfeo intended that she should die on seeing the apparent deaths, or at least suffer the fate that followed. The real Arsileo survived, and the apparent killing of both men was a staged scene rather than a murder and suicide. Belisa had interpreted the figures, gestures, and voices as proof of death; the later account reveals that the familiar appearances were imitations produced by spirits. The reversal does not undo her suffering, but it explains why Arsileo could later be found alive and why the deaths she remembered had not actually occurred.

Belisa’s Exile and the Correction

Belisa flees her parents’ home immediately after witnessing the scene. She goes to a remote place, lamenting her fortune, and says that for six months she has neither seen nor spoken to anyone nor tried to find anyone. Her first telling, made before the shepherds and nymphs, is so painful that those listening weep with her. At that point, she still regards Arsileo and Arsenio as unquestionably dead; her account is a sincere report of what she believes she witnessed, not knowledge of Alfeo’s trick.

The truth reaches her through Polidora, who encounters Belisa with Cintia and Dorida in the woods. Polidora asks whether Belisa is certain of the deaths. Belisa answers from the authority of her own sight: she watched one man pierced by an arrow and the other kill himself with his sword. Polidora then tells her that both are alive and identifies Alfeo’s sorcery as the cause of the deception. When Belisa asks how she can know, Polidora names Arsileo as her source and offers to take Belisa to him. Belisa moves from disbelief to an urgent, uncertain hope, and Polidora leads her and the two nymphs toward the place where Arsileo is waiting.

Narrative Significance

The episode makes sight itself unreliable: Belisa’s eyewitness certainty is genuine, but the scene she witnessed was manufactured. Its two tellings first establish the apparent deaths in the language of irreversible loss, then expose the devices that made that account persuasive. The distinction between appearance and fact is especially cruel because Belisa’s response is real even though the deaths are not. Six months of isolation, her grief for both men, and the listeners’ tears belong to the consequences of a false report embodied as a convincing spectacle.

The deception also exploits the relationships that preceded it. Arsenio’s pursuit of Belisa and his habit of watching her street make his presence at the meeting plausible; Arsileo’s secret appointment supplies the target; and Alfeo’s frustrated love gives the scheme its motive. The apparent double death therefore grows from the lovers’ concealed meeting and the rivalries surrounding it, while its later correction restores the possibility of reunion. Polidora’s news does not erase Belisa’s months of mourning; it changes their meaning and sends her out of seclusion toward the living Arsileo.