Don Félix’s disappearance turns Celia’s death into a second, more prolonged separation for Felismena: when he vanishes from the court, she takes up a shepherdess’s dress and spends more than two years searching for him. The episode is recounted by Felismena within her story to the nymphs, where the lost beloved remains both the purpose of her search and the measure by which she weighs every later consolation.

Causes and Background

Before Don Félix disappears, Celia discovers that Valerio’s requests for her favor were made on his master’s behalf, not because Valerio sought her for himself. She feels deceived and rejected, condemns Valerio, and shuts herself away. Her anger gives way to tears; from behind the closed door she says she wants no remedy but death. Valerio cannot persuade her to let him in.

The following morning, news spreads through the city that Celia suffered a fainting fit during the night and died. The account does not establish that her death was self-inflicted: her threat precedes the report of the faint, but the narrative leaves the cause at that. Her death is the immediate circumstance of Don Félix’s departure, not an explanation of where he goes.

Don Félix Disappears

Don Félix is overwhelmed by Celia’s death. Felismena describes his words, lamentations, tears, and sighs as beyond measure; then, on that same night, he disappears from the house. Neither his servants nor anyone else knows where he has gone. The suddenness matters: grief is visible, but its consequence is an absence that no one can interpret or resolve.

Valerio, already carrying the burden of Celia’s death, also sees Don Félix’s disappearance. His account makes the two losses fall together: the woman he had addressed on his master’s behalf is dead, and the master himself is gone. For Felismena, the news closes off any immediate way back to Don Félix and leaves the search as her only course.

Felismena’s Search

Efforts to discover Don Félix’s whereabouts prove fruitless. Felismena therefore changes her dress, leaving her customary identity for that of a shepherdess, and searches for him in many places. By the time she tells the story, she has been travelling in this disguise for more than two years without finding him. The disguise is not a brief stratagem for entering one court: it becomes the outward condition of a long, unresolved pursuit.

The search does not erase her attachment. Felismena says that, after Don Félix’s life, the chance to perform a small service for the nymphs is the greatest happiness she could receive. Her phrasing places the rescue in relation to the absent man: it gives her a real consolation, but not one that replaces the hope invested in finding him.

The Story’s Turn and Significance

Felismena tells the history of the disappearance after rescuing three nymphs, whose music and beauty first draw her into their company. Hearing her account, they are astonished by her constancy and by the love that led her to abandon her natural dress for a shepherdess’s. Dorida responds with sympathy and urges Felismena to go with them to Wise Felicia’s House. The telling thus changes the immediate shape of the search: Don Félix remains missing, but Felismena is no longer travelling without companions or a possible destination.

The episode makes absence an active force in Felismena’s life. Don Félix’s unexplained departure sets her moving across unfamiliar places, while her continued search shows that the passage of more than two years has not ended her commitment. Her encounter with the nymphs offers companionship and a new path forward, but leaves the central uncertainty intact: she still does not know where Don Félix is.