Felicia uses a magic potion to change the shepherds’ affections

Felicia uses a magic potion to change the shepherds’ affections, intervening directly in the tangled loves of Sireno, Silvano, and Selvagia. The scene turns sorrow into release and redirects Silvano’s devotion: Sireno awakens without his former passion for Diana, while Silvano and Selvagia recognize a mutual love. Felicia’s remedy is presented not as a cure that restores each shepherd to an earlier state, but as a magical alteration that makes new emotional lives possible.

Background and Purpose

The intervention takes place at Felicia’s house, where Sireno, Silvano, and Selvagia have arrived alongside Belisa and Felismena. Their loves have left them in unequal forms of distress. Sireno still mourns Diana, though she is married; Silvano has remained devoted to Diana despite her lack of response; and Selvagia has been caught in a complicated attachment involving Alanio and Silvano. Belisa, too, carries a painful love, but Felicia does not include her in the immediate treatment.

Felicia frames the potion as a practical answer to desires that cannot be fulfilled as things stand. She tells Sireno that no remedy can let him enjoy Diana without another person’s death, and that this outcome lies beyond her power. Instead of promising that Diana will return to him, Felicia offers release from wanting what cannot be attained. To Selvagia and Silvano she presents the drink as both relief from past suffering and the beginning of a new happiness, though they do not yet know what that happiness will be.

The Potion and Its Effects

Felicia brings out two vessels of fine crystal, each with a gold-enamelled foot. Sireno drinks from one; Selvagia and Silvano share the other. All three immediately fall to the ground in a deep sleep. Felicia explains to the astonished Felismena that the water’s power allows her to keep them asleep for as long as she chooses, and that no one else can wake them. The potion therefore first suspends the shepherds’ ordinary awareness, placing their transformation under Felicia’s control.

Felicia awakens Sireno by touching his head with a book taken from her sleeve. She tests the change by asking how he would respond to seeing Diana happy with her husband and laughing about their former love. Sireno says he would feel no pain and would join in the laughter. Asked what he would do if Diana were unmarried but wished to marry Silvano rather than him, he says he would arrange the match himself. His response marks a decisive break with the grief that had defined him: he now wishes Diana well without seeking her for himself.

Felismena is startled that Sireno’s tears and sighs have vanished so quickly. Sireno explains that when the love has ended, the actions it produced end with it. His goodwill is no longer confined to Diana: he says he feels the same toward Felismena and anyone who has not offended him. The change is thus more than a momentary composure or a decision to endure disappointment. The story presents his former romantic attachment as extinguished by the potion.

Silvano and Selvagia

Felicia next awakens Silvano. His love, unlike Sireno’s, has not simply disappeared: it has turned toward Selvagia. Silvano compares his former wandering in love with a lost ship unable to find harbour, and describes his new feeling as reaching a safe port. The image gives his change a sense of arrival after prolonged uncertainty. He now regards his former devotion to Diana as a mistake and openly declares his love for Selvagia.

Silvano tries to wake Selvagia by calling to her, but she remains under the potion’s sleep. Felicia takes him aside and tells him not to leave until she summons him. After waking Selvagia with the book, Felicia says that Alanio is waiting outside, having searched for her and obtained his father’s permission to marry her. Selvagia refuses to treat that permission as decisive: it cannot command her thoughts. Instead, she asks where Silvano is. Her response makes clear that the new pairing is not simply imposed upon her by Silvano’s transformed desire; she herself seeks him rather than accepting Alanio’s offer.

Hearing her call for him, Silvano rushes back into the room. The two look at one another with affection and confirm their love. The narrator presents their mutual attachment as lasting, ending only with death. Sireno, Felismena, and Belisa share in their happiness, while Felicia predicts that the lovers’ story will reach its fulfilment when each is joined in marriage to the person desired. She promises to tell them when the time is right; the scene anticipates marriage but does not report that it occurs here.

Belisa and the Aftermath

Belisa remains outside the immediate magical cure. When she is distressed by the shepherds’ sudden sleep, Felicia reassures her that she expects to see her consoled too. She explains that fortune has reserved Belisa for a greater happiness than the freedom the potion could give her. Felicia consequently keeps Belisa in her company rather than making her drink. The contrast distinguishes the remedy’s immediate purpose—releasing or redirecting the three shepherds’ affections—from Belisa’s still-unresolved future.

After the shepherds awaken and reunite in their new happiness, Felicia sends them back to their flocks and promises continued help. The following morning they leave for their village, while Felismena prepares to depart as well, now dressed as a shepherdess. The potion episode therefore closes one cluster of romantic suffering even as the larger narrative continues. Its resolution is deliberately uneven: Sireno is freed from desire, Silvano and Selvagia find one another, and Belisa must wait for the greater consolation Felicia foresees.