Don Félix

Don Félix’s changing attachments make him both the cause of Felismena’s long trial and the person whose eventual recognition brings it to an end. He first courts her with elaborate signs of devotion, then leaves without warning when his father sends him to court; there he turns his attention to Celia, unaware that his page is Felismena in disguise. Only after she saves his life does he learn what her loyalty has cost, and the love he had neglected returns with new force.

Identity and Early Courtship

Don Félix is a young man of high rank, described by Felismena as a knight whose family standing and prospects matter to his father. Before the separation that drives her from home, he sees her in the garden from a terrace at his own house and falls in love—or, as Felismena later wonders, presents himself as though he has. He spends many days making his feelings known through signs, walks, music, and tournaments held outside her door. His courtship depends on display and repeated approaches, while Felismena initially resists believing his words.

When Don Félix sends her a letter through her maid Rosina, Felismena rejects it sharply, suspecting that his rank, rather than genuine love, has encouraged his boldness. Yet she also replies to him, cautioning him against beginning a relationship through concealment and saying that she values what he has written. That answer gives him an opening to ask for conversation. Their exchange continues for months; music, tournaments, letters, and brief messages sustain the courtship until Felismena, despite her earlier caution, falls deeply in love and finally reveals her own feelings. Their relationship has become most intense just as an outside decision breaks it apart.

Separation and Life at Court

When Don Félix’s father learns of the relationship, he fears that his son may marry Felismena. He sends Don Félix to Princess Augusta Cesarina’s Court, presenting the move as a way for a young nobleman to spend his youth in a more suitable place than his father’s household. Don Félix leaves in such distress that he does not manage to tell Felismena he is going. For her, the unexplained departure turns love into absence and uncertainty: she fears that court life, other women, and distance will make him forget her.

Felismena responds by disguising herself as a man and setting out to find him. After a twenty-day journey, she reaches the court and takes lodging away from company, unsure how to approach him without exposing herself. She eventually enters Don Félix’s service as a page, receiving kind treatment from him while concealing her identity. His failure to recognize her is crucial to the ensuing irony: he welcomes the person who has crossed a long distance for him, but sees only a trusted male servant.

After about a month, Don Félix confides in the page about his love for Celia. He says that Celia once treated him favorably but has since grown distant, apparently after hearing of an earlier love affair; he also admits that his present courtship began partly as a diversion while his business at court remained unfinished. He now insists that he loves Celia profoundly. Felismena listens while suppressing her own pain, then helps him pursue Celia, carrying messages and seeking favors on his behalf. Don Félix entrusts her with his private history and asks her to keep his confidence, never realizing that the servant advancing his new love is the woman he left behind.

Celia and Don Félix’s Disappearance

Celia’s attachment to the page is entangled with a misunderstanding: she believes the messages and requests for favor are signs of the page’s own interest in her. When she discovers that they are being conveyed for Don Félix, she feels deceived and accuses the page of having misled her about his intentions. She refuses to see either the page or Don Félix. The next morning, the court learns that Celia has suffered a sudden fainting fit and died.

Don Félix is overwhelmed by Celia’s death. His grief is expressed through lamentation, tears, and sighs; Felismena, who has helped sustain the courtship, is herself stricken by Celia’s fate and by Don Félix’s sorrow. But the loss is followed by another rupture: on the same night that he learns Celia has died, Don Félix disappears from his house without telling his servants or anyone else where he has gone. The narrative gives no explanation for his departure. Unable to discover his whereabouts, Felismena adopts the shepherdess’s dress and spends more than two years searching for him in different places.

Rescue and Recognition

Don Félix re-enters the story in a violent encounter witnessed by Felismena and the shepherds. Three knights attack him on foot on a river island. He has already struck one of them dead, but the remaining two have driven him into serious danger. Felismena intervenes with her bow: her first arrow kills one attacker, and a second pierces the other through the heart. Her rescue is an act of courage, but it also brings the hidden history between them into the open.

When Don Félix removes his helmet and recognizes Felismena, she recounts the debt he owes her: she served him as a page for a year, helped him win Celia’s favor at the cost of her own tears, and endured the pain of watching him love another woman. She also reminds him that she left her home and freedom to find him, and that she has continued to serve him even in a shepherdess’s disguise. Her account changes the meaning of the rescue. Don Félix had thought of the page as a helpful confidant; he now understands that the servant’s loyalty belonged to Felismena, the woman he had abandoned.

The recognition overwhelms him. Wounded and losing much blood, Don Félix faints at Felismena’s feet. Dorida arrives with two vessels: fragrant water in a silver vessel revives him, while water from a golden vessel heals his wounds and removes the pain associated with his love for Celia. The same remedy restores his love for Felismena, which becomes more vivid than before. The magic makes his physical recovery and emotional change coincide, but his return to her is also accompanied by a clear admission of responsibility. He acknowledges that he loved Celia and neglected Felismena, and that neither Celia’s beauty nor changing times nor absence adequately excuses his conduct.

Reconciliation and Narrative Role

Felismena forgives Don Félix, explaining that her enduring love is why she undertook such hardships for his sake. Her forgiveness does not erase the history she has just made him confront: the reunion follows a direct reckoning with his departure, his blindness to her identity, and the suffering involved in helping him court Celia. Don Félix is no longer simply the distant beloved around whom Felismena’s actions have been organized; he must recognize her deeds and accept the obligations they create.

Dorida then invites the couple to Diana’s Temple, where Felicia and the shepherds are waiting. Don Félix agrees, and the two travel together, with Felismena telling him what has happened since they last met. He is astonished by the events she recounts, especially her encounters with the savages and the affairs of the shepherds, and by the fact that she served him for so long without his recognizing her. At the temple, Don Félix and Felismena are married among the other couples. Their marriage closes the immediate arc of her search with a public union, while the narrative’s final reference to further developments leaves their story open beyond this reunion.

Don Félix’s plot is built around a contrast between professions of love and the attention required to recognize another person’s devotion. He first pursues Felismena through visible signs of courtship, then leaves her without notice; later, he depends on her service while failing to know who she is. His final change comes only after her history is spoken aloud and her rescue makes her steadfastness impossible to overlook. The ending rewards that fidelity, but it also makes recognition—not merely the restoration of affection—the decisive work of their reconciliation.