Ismenia and Montano's Love Affair

Ismenia and Montano’s love affair turns a calculated pretense into real attachment, then becomes one link in the shifting chain of desire that shapes Selvagia’s story. Ismenia first feigns love for Montano to make Alanio jealous; Montano’s response helps turn the fiction into genuine love. But while Ismenia becomes steadfastly attached to him, Montano’s attention moves to Selvagia, and the account ultimately reports that he marries Ismenia.

A Courtship Used to Reach Alanio

In Selvagia’s account, Montano has long sought Ismenia, but she does not initially return his affection. Her deception is aimed instead at Alanio, who loves Selvagia and is Ismenia’s cousin. Ismenia knows that Alanio is especially hostile to Montano, so she pretends to accept Montano’s suit in the hope that the sudden loss of someone Alanio had taken for granted will move him to care for her again. What appears to be a new romance is therefore first devised as leverage in another one.

Montano responds with joy and devotion. He renders Ismenia services and takes on hardships for her, while Alanio’s earlier wrongs against him help shape the situation. Ismenia’s scheme does not remain a performance: the narrator says that she places her love in Montano with such firmness that she wants no one more and least of all Alanio. Her attachment changes the original design. The person she meant to use to influence Alanio becomes the person she truly loves.

Alanio’s Return and Ismenia’s Constancy

When Alanio sees Ismenia favoring Montano, he feels the change acutely. His love for Selvagia initially keeps him from showing the depth of his reaction, but he grows angry at the thought that his rival is being favored. He begins to look toward Ismenia again, limits his visits to Selvagia’s village, and avoids appearing there as often as before. His renewed attention is thus entangled with rivalry: Montano’s success with Ismenia unsettles him and alters where he directs his own attention.

The change does not restore Ismenia’s former desire for Alanio. Though Alanio sends messages and complaints and tries to draw her back, she does not waver in her love for Montano. Selvagia describes the contrast sharply: Alanio’s affections move back and forth, while Ismenia’s new attachment holds. The relationship that began as a tactic has become the firmest bond in this part of the story, even as the people around it continue to change their allegiances.

Montano’s Shift Toward Selvagia

Montano, however, does not remain equally constant. During a period when Selvagia’s father and Montano’s father have business concerning their pasturelands, Montano sees Selvagia bringing her sheep to the fold and begins to love her. Selvagia offers two possible reasons for the cooling of his earlier attachment to Ismenia: he may have wearied of the excessive favors she showed him, or he may have become jealous of Alanio’s efforts. The narration leaves the cause uncertain, but makes the reversal plain: Montano’s love for Selvagia grows until she says it is no less than her own love for Alanio, Alanio’s for Ismenia, or Ismenia’s for Montano.

The four attachments form a revolving pattern of pursuit. Ismenia follows Montano when he goes to the flock; Montano follows Selvagia when she takes her sheep to the hills; Selvagia seeks Alanio when she learns where he is grazing; and Alanio follows Ismenia. Their repeated movements through the woodland make visible the mismatch between whom each person loves and who returns that love. Ismenia remains directed toward Montano even as his attention has turned elsewhere.

Marriage and the Unequal Resolution

After a meeting in the forest, Selvagia sings of her distress, and her father takes her from their village without explaining why. She later learns that Montano has married Ismenia, while Alanio intends to marry another of Ismenia’s sisters, Silvia. The account gives no further explanation of how Montano and Ismenia’s marriage came about, so it does not establish whether his earlier passion for Selvagia ended before the marriage or how the couple’s relationship changed afterward. What it does establish is the outcome: the attachment Ismenia had chosen over Alanio becomes a marriage, while Selvagia is separated from the place where the tangled courtships unfolded.

Ismenia and Montano’s affair is therefore both a romance and a hinge in Selvagia’s tale. Ismenia’s feint becomes sincere, and her constancy survives Alanio’s renewed pursuit; Montano’s affections, by contrast, shift toward Selvagia before the story closes with his marriage to Ismenia. The contrast between intention, changing desire, and eventual marriage gives the relationship its distinctive shape.