Felismena dressing as a man

Felismena’s disguise as a man turns her pursuit of Don Félix into a sustained performance of another identity: under the name Valerio, she enters the court, becomes Don Félix’s page, and serves the very courtship that deepens her own heartbreak. The disguise gives her access to him, but not the power to alter his affections; after Celia’s death and Don Félix’s disappearance, it becomes the means by which she continues her search.

Identity and Circumstances

Felismena’s decision follows a separation she experiences as an immediate threat to the love she has placed at the center of her life. Don Félix’s father learns of their relationship and, fearing that his son might marry her, sends him to Princess Augusta Cesarina’s Court. Don Félix leaves without warning Felismena. She fears that absence and the presence of women of greater beauty and rank will make him forget her, and decides to go after him rather than remain at home in uncertainty.

The disguise is therefore both practical and personally costly. Felismena says she undertakes what no woman had thought to do: she puts on men’s clothes and travels to court. A trusted friend, to whom she has confided her secret, buys her clothes and a horse. Felismena describes the departure as leaving not only her home but her reputation behind, uncertain that she can ever recover it. She takes the name Valerio in case anyone asks who she is. Her account presents this choice as an act driven by love, but one that exposes her to risks attached to a woman crossing the limits of her expected role.

Arrival at Court and the Name Valerio

The journey to court takes twenty days. On arrival, Felismena lodges in a house removed from public company and spends the day wondering how she might see Don Félix without revealing herself. That night she hears a musical performance in the street. She recognizes Fabio, Don Félix’s page, and learns from him that the lady above the garden is Celia, whom Don Félix now serves. Fabio adds that Don Félix once served a woman in his own country and received greater favor from her than he receives from Celia. The report confirms Felismena’s fear: Don Félix has not simply been separated from her; he is now publicly attached to another woman.

The next day, Felismena goes to the palace, where she sees Don Félix arriving with richly dressed attendants. When Fabio asks who she is, she maintains the fiction: she says her home is Vandalia, gives her name as Valerio, and claims that she has not yet entered anyone’s service. Fabio offers her a position as Don Félix’s page, describing the food, clothing, and pay she can expect. Felismena accepts because service is the best available way to remain close to Don Félix. He welcomes her, and the disguise changes from a travelling expedient into a daily role within his household.

Page, Confidant, and Messenger

The position grants Felismena proximity but sharpens the difference between what she knows and what she can reveal. She sees messages carried back and forth between Don Félix and Celia, a duty she describes as painful. After a month, Don Félix trusts Valerio enough to explain his courtship. He admits that he began the affair as Celia had suspected, while claiming that he now loves her deeply. Felismena must hear this account without disclosing that she is the woman he loved before his departure.

Her role as page makes the disguise effective precisely because it conceals the personal stakes of her service. Don Félix confides in Valerio as a male attendant, while Felismena continues to love him as herself. When she is sent to speak with Celia, she cannot make the encounter serve her own interests: she says that she did not succeed in speaking with her, concealing what happened from Don Félix. The arrangement gives her access to the lovers’ affairs, but turns that access into an ongoing test of secrecy and endurance.

Loss and Renewed Search

Celia dies suddenly after an encounter in which she confronts Valerio as ungrateful and says she wants no remedy but death. Don Félix grieves intensely; Felismena, too, is distressed by Celia’s death and by his sorrow. Then, on the same night that he learns of Celia’s death, Don Félix vanishes from his house without telling his servants or anyone else where he has gone. The disappearance ends Felismena’s position as his page without resolving her attachment to him.

Unable to find Don Félix despite extensive efforts, Felismena again puts on the male disguise. She says she has searched for him for more than two years, travelling through many places without finding him. Her search eventually brings her among the nymphs, whom she helps; she counts this service as a consolation amid the loss of the man on whom she had placed her hopes. By this point, she has also left her natural clothing and taken the dress of a shepherdess. The disguises mark successive stages in the same unresolved pursuit: first, the male identity that secures entry into Don Félix’s world; later, the shepherdess identity in which she continues her life after he disappears.

Narrative Role and Significance

Felismena recounts her history to the nymphs, making the disguise part of a larger account of how love has redirected her life. Her story begins with an attempt to overcome separation through action: rather than accept the distance created by Don Félix’s departure, she crosses it in borrowed clothes and an assumed name. At court, however, the disguise cannot restore the earlier relationship. It allows Felismena to witness Don Félix’s new attachment and assist him in it, while hiding her own identity and suffering.

The contrast between outward role and inward constancy gives the disguise its particular force. Valerio is credible enough to be trusted and employed, yet that success confines Felismena to the position of observer and intermediary. After Don Félix disappears, the same determination that first carried her to court sustains a search lasting more than two years. The disguise is thus neither a simple escape from her circumstances nor a resolution: it is the means through which she acts, serves, and endures while her love remains unanswered.