Selvagia’s removal from her homeland is the abrupt, unexplained turn that ends her life in her native village and places her among the shepherds who hear her story. Recounted to Sireno and Silvano as part of her history of love and misfortune, the event joins a private separation to the pastoral world’s public songs, festivals, and rules of propriety.

Setting and Recalled Circumstances

Selvagia remembers living in a village beside the Douro River, in the Kingdom of the Lusitanos. The region is presented as a settled rural province, where the ordinary work of sustaining life is interrupted by the power of love. Its principal communal gathering is the festival at the Temple of Minerva, attended by shepherds and shepherdesses from across the province.

On the eve of the festival, Selvagia and her friends put on their best clothes and went to keep vigil in the temple, as they had done in other years. Local custom required the shepherds to enter only to pay their respects and then leave, so the shepherdesses and nymphs would remain alone through the night. The separation that follows thus comes after an occasion structured by both communal celebration and the careful regulation of who may remain in the sacred space.

The Song and Her Father’s Decision

After Selvagia finishes her song, the gathered shepherds are moved to tears, especially Ismenia. Selvagia says that their sorrow draws her into it, though she considers herself blameless in the misfortune she describes. The group then returns to its respective home, leaving the vigil and its emotional gathering behind.

The next day, without explaining his decision, Selvagia’s father takes her away from their village and brings her to the home of her aunt Albania, her father’s sister. By the time Selvagia recounts the episode, she has been there for several days and still does not know why she was banished from her home. Her account establishes the father’s action and its consequence, but supplies no motive for it.

Displacement and What She Learns

Only after arriving at her aunt’s home does Selvagia learn that Montano has married Ismenia and that Alanio intends to marry another of Ismenia’s sisters, Silvia. These developments reach her as news from the place she has left; the account does not say that they explain her father’s decision or that he acted because of them.

The separation therefore has a double consequence: it removes Selvagia from her familiar community, and it makes her dependent on reports about the lives and relationships continuing there. Although she grieves, she wishes Montano happiness with his new wife, saying that her love for him leads her to desire his contentment. Her departure is presented not as a settled escape from attachment, but as an unexplained change of place that leaves her emotionally connected to the people and events behind.