Duarda

Duarda is a shepherdess in Lusitania whose rejection of Danteo turns a broken promise into a claim to personal freedom. In her encounter with Armia and Felismena, she recounts how she had loved Danteo faithfully, why she refused to marry him secretly, and how his marriage to Andresa made her unwilling to accept him again after he was widowed.

Identity and Pastoral Setting

Duarda appears in the seventh book, in a pastoral landscape beside the Mondego River. Felismena, traveling through the region, hides among tall reeds and overhears Duarda speaking with Armia. The women tend their flocks in the fields and later sit beneath the shade of an ash tree; their rural setting provides a quiet stage for an argument about promises, marriage, and the limits of forgiveness.

Duarda speaks Portuguese, and her account identifies her with the shepherding community of the Fields of Mondego. She is presented through her exchange with Armia rather than through a separate account of her background. Her measured explanation of the past, however, makes clear that she once organized much of her attention around Danteo and the care of his flock.

Love and the Broken Promise

Duarda recalls that she loved Danteo deeply and had given him no cause to doubt her affection. She says that when his sheep grazed in the countryside, she watched from a nearby hill to make sure they found good pasture without disturbance. Their animals, she insists, mattered to her as much as her own. Her devotion was expressed not only in assurances but in steady care and attention.

When Danteo asked her to marry him secretly, Duarda refused. She told him that she was already his and could never belong to another, and asked him to trust the promise that he would become her husband rather than risk an act that would bring them difficulty. The following day, Danteo said that his father wanted him to marry and asked Duarda’s permission to comply. She remembers answering with apparent freedom, but insists that her face and manner showed this was not what she truly wished him to do. Within three days, Danteo married Andresa.

Duarda rejects Danteo’s later use of that exchange as an excuse. To her, the decisive fact is not the permission he claims to have received, but the promise he had made and the speed with which he abandoned it. Her distinction is between words uttered under pressure and actions that reveal what a person has chosen.

Refusal and Reclaimed Freedom

At the time of the conversation, Andresa has been dead for less than a month, and Danteo has begun seeking Duarda again. Armia urges Duarda to consider his renewed desire and argues that his earlier conduct may be excused by the exchange about his father’s wishes. Duarda will not accept that defense. She recalls that Danteo had asked her to trust their marriage promise, then married someone else almost immediately; his wife’s death does not undo that choice or restore the confidence he broke.

Duarda admits that, after his marriage, she prayed for vengeance against Danteo and Andresa. She also says that she endured what followed and no longer wants to surrender the freedom she has regained. Her refusal is therefore more than a rejection of a suitor: she denies Danteo’s assumption that his renewed desire entitles him to reclaim her. If, as Armia suggests, a person who belongs to one cannot belong to another, Duarda answers that she now belongs to herself and cannot be Danteo’s.

Narrative Role and Significance

The episode places Duarda’s remembered devotion beside her present refusal. The shepherd who once watched over Danteo’s flock will no longer let his persuasive explanations determine her future. Her account gives the pastoral setting a social and ethical dimension: promises of marriage carry consequences, and fidelity cannot be established by eloquence alone when conduct contradicts it.

Felismena, who has listened unseen, explicitly supports Duarda’s reasoning. She observes that many misfortunes might be avoided if women did not trust finely composed words from people whose hearts are free, then admits that she herself did not follow that counsel. Duarda’s experience thus becomes more than a private dispute with Danteo: it gives voice to a warning that Felismena recognizes from her own history. After the women sing, the quiet conversation is interrupted by the sound of combat nearby, and Felismena goes to intervene; Duarda’s scene closes as one episode in the novel’s larger movement between pastoral love stories and sudden action.