Danteo and Andresa's Marriage

Danteo and Andresa’s marriage becomes the decisive breach in Danteo’s earlier bond with Duarda: after promising to marry Duarda, he marries Andresa instead, and Duarda later refuses to renew their relationship even after Andresa dies. The marriage is presented through Duarda’s recollection and their later confrontation, where a disputed exchange about parental authority and a rejected proposal of secret marriage makes the difference between Danteo’s promise and his actions the center of the conflict.

The Promise and the Choice

Danteo and Duarda had been lovers, and Duarda says that she had given no other shepherd reason to complain of her affection. She recalls that Danteo once asked her to marry him secretly, without waiting for their parents. Duarda refused that course as improper, telling him she was his and would not belong to anyone else, and that she trusted the promise he had already made to become her husband.

The next day, Danteo told her that his father wanted him to marry and asked for her counsel. Duarda says she answered that he could do what his own will and his father’s wishes required, just as she would act according to hers. She later insists that Danteo should have understood from her expression and manner that this was not what she wanted to say. In her account, her guarded answer did not cancel the earlier promise or make his choice inevitable; it became the exchange through which he could proceed despite knowing her attachment.

Marriage to Andresa and Its Aftermath

Danteo married within three days of that conversation. Duarda presents the speed of the decision as especially painful because it followed so closely after his request that she marry him secretly and her assurance that she considered herself promised to him. The marriage to Andresa thus marks not merely a different match but the collapse of a commitment Duarda had understood as mutual and enduring.

By the time Danteo seeks Duarda again, Andresa is dead. Duarda says that less than a month has passed since Andresa’s burial and that Danteo has already begun turning back toward her. She acknowledges Andresa’s death without treating it as a remedy for the earlier injury: she had suffered after the wedding, and she recalls having prayed for vengeance upon both Andresa and Danteo. The account does not establish that Andresa caused the breach; Duarda’s grievance is directed principally at Danteo’s choice and the promise he failed to keep.

Duarda’s Refusal and the Relationship’s Significance

In the later encounter, Danteo presents himself as still loving Duarda and offers service as proof of his affection. Duarda answers by recalling how thoroughly she had once shown herself devoted to him, even caring for the sheep he tended. She then names the marriage to Andresa as the act that ended his claim upon her: she is now her own, she says, and Danteo cannot recover what he lost through his own fault. Her refusal distinguishes continuing memory of love from renewed consent to a relationship.

The episode is related in a pastoral setting in Lusitania, among the Fields of Mondego, where Felismena and Armia hear the disagreement. Armia urges Duarda to forgive Danteo, while Duarda insists that the consequences of what people do cannot be dismissed as lightly as the words exchanged between lovers. Their dispute frames the marriage as a test of responsibility: Danteo’s paternal circumstances and Duarda’s ambiguous answer are part of the history, but neither erases the broken promise in Duarda’s judgment. The supplied account leaves the disagreement unresolved when the shepherds hear the clash of combat nearby.