Diana's Temple

Diana's Temple is the final gathering place in the narrated action, where Felicia receives Felismena, Don Félix, and the assembled shepherds. The temple becomes the setting for a communal wedding: a point of convergence for separate love stories and a joyful close that also anticipates further narrative.

Association and Setting

The temple is associated with Felicia, whose invitation brings Felismena and Don Félix there after their reconciliation. The account establishes its importance through the people who await the couple and the events that take place within it, rather than through a detailed description of its architecture or surroundings.

Its function is distinct from the other sacred setting described in the book: the Temple of Minerva, where shepherds and nymphs gather for a festival governed by specific rules. That festival belongs to Selvagia’s account; Diana's Temple is identified instead with Felicia’s welcome and the final weddings.

Arrival and Gathering

After Felismena has settled the dispute between Amarilida and Filemón, she continues through the valley. Later, Dorida asks that Felismena and Don Félix accompany her to Diana's Temple, where Felicia is waiting with the shepherds and shepherdesses. Don Félix agrees, and the couple sets out with Dorida.

They travel on horses taken from the three knights who had attacked Don Félix and left him in danger. Along the way, Felismena tells Don Félix what has happened during their separation. He is particularly astonished by her service to him as a page without his recognizing her, as well as by the deaths of the three savages and the events at Felicia’s house. Their arrival turns the journey from a private reunion into a return to the larger company whose stories have unfolded around Felicia.

Weddings and Narrative Function

Felicia and the shepherds receive the travelers with joy, especially Felismena, whom the company esteems for her goodness and beauty. At the temple, the assembled lovers are married to those they love, and the weddings are celebrated collectively. The location thus gathers many separate attachments into one public celebration, giving the book’s closing movement a resolution through marriage and shared rejoicing.

Sireno’s arrival contributes to the celebration, but the ending does not present the whole story as complete. It signals that his arrival will lead into events related in the second part, including the further story of the Portuguese shepherds Danteo and Duarda. Diana's Temple therefore serves both as a place of reunion and marriage and as a threshold between the resolutions reached here and the narrative still to come.