Duarda rechaza a Danteo

Duarda’s rejection of Danteo turns a former promise of marriage into an argument about whether love is proved by words or by deeds. When Danteo returns after his wife’s death and seeks Duarda’s affection again, she refuses to resume their relationship: she remembers having been devoted to him, but holds him responsible for breaking their understanding and claims the freedom she had painfully regained.

Setting and Background

Felismena overhears the dispute during the afternoon rest beside the Mondego River. She has paused near two shepherdesses, Duarda and Armia, who speak Portuguese beneath a tree. Armia urges Duarda to pity Danteo, describing him as a pastor whose thoughts are consumed by her and suggesting that Duarda should not treat his love harshly. The appeal makes the history of their relationship the immediate subject of the encounter: Armia argues for reconciliation, while Duarda insists that the past cannot be separated from what Danteo did.

The two had once loved one another, and Danteo had promised to marry Duarda. Their conflict centers on the circumstances of his decision to marry someone else. Armia presents his account of an earlier conversation near the grove at Fermoselle: Danteo had said that his father wanted him to marry and asked Duarda what he should do. According to Armia, Duarda responded that she was neither so old nor so powerful over him that he needed her permission, and that he could do what his own will and his father’s required. Armia treats this exchange as evidence that Duarda released him from an obligation.

Duarda rejects that interpretation by setting it against a different, more intimate conversation. The day before Danteo asked about his father’s wishes, she says, he had proposed that they marry secretly. She refused to elope, not because she had withdrawn her commitment, but because she considered secrecy improper and believed the promise he had already made. She told him she was his and could never belong to another, and asked him to be satisfied with her word while they waited. Her account distinguishes a refusal of the proposed means from a refusal of the marriage itself.

The Broken Promise

Duarda recalls that Danteo returned the next day to say that his father wanted him to marry and to ask her permission. Within three days, he had married another woman. The speed of that decision makes his earlier appeals to Duarda’s judgment look different in retrospect: she had trusted him with her feelings and understood their promise as binding, while he proceeded with a marriage that left her behind. Her grievance is not simply that he chose another wife; it is that he had sought her confidence and then acted against the commitment she believed they shared.

Armia suggests that Duarda’s earlier answer gave Danteo room to act. Duarda answers that he was not too ignorant to understand her expression and manner, which, she says, showed that her words were not what she truly wished to say. More importantly, she refuses to let an ambiguous exchange outweigh the explicit pledge and the action that followed it. Words may be explained or recast; the marriage itself remains an accomplished fact. In Duarda’s account, Danteo cannot use her indirect response to erase his responsibility for choosing another course.

Duarda also acknowledges how deeply she had once loved him. She says that no other shepherd among those who grazed their flocks in the Fields of Mondego received from her even a word that could have justified a complaint against her love. Danteo’s sheep mattered to her as much as her own: she watched from a hill to make sure they could graze without disturbance. These details give weight to the betrayal she describes. Her former affection was shown through attention and care, not merely declared, and the contrast makes her present refusal a decision grounded in remembered experience.

Danteo’s Appeal and Duarda’s Answer

Danteo arrives while Duarda and Armia are talking. He asks only that his company in the fields not trouble her and that the verses his sorrow inspires not weary her. He offers practical service: he will take her goats to the river, watch them while they drink, tend her flock, and keep the sheep from entering the nearby fields. His appeal presents devotion as labor freely offered, with the promise that Duarda should need to undertake no work while he finds no rest unless he is working for her.

Duarda does not deny that their love was once real. She says she loved him greatly, that his tears and sighs moved her, and that the days when she could not see him brought her no pleasure. But she also identifies the consequence of that devotion: her submission, she says, gave rise to his confidence, and that confidence led him to do what he did. She remembers the anger she felt after his marriage, including her wish for vengeance against both Danteo and his wife, Andresa. Now that Andresa is dead, Duarda will not treat her death as an opportunity to restore the old relationship. She says that she has passed through the aftermath of the marriage and asks instead to enjoy her freedom. What Danteo lost through his own fault, she will not give back to him.

Words, Deeds, and the Interrupted Encounter

Felismena openly supports Duarda’s reasoning. She observes that people might avoid great misfortune if they were less ready to trust finely ordered words from hearts that may not be steadfast, and admits that she herself failed to follow this counsel. Her response makes Duarda’s account more than a private quarrel: the episode tests declarations of love against choices that have lasting consequences. Danteo’s present offers of service resemble the language of devotion, but Duarda measures them against the earlier promise and the marriage that followed.

The women turn from the argument to singing, and Felismena recognizes in a later shepherd’s lament an echo of her own sorrow. Before the dispute can continue, the sound of combat breaks across the meadow. Felismena and the others hurry to see a lone knight fighting three opponents, shifting the narrative from an argument about fidelity to an immediate physical danger. Duarda’s decision, however, has already been made clear: a history of mutual love does not compel her to forgive a broken promise, and Danteo’s renewed attention cannot undo the choice by which he lost her.