Temple of Diana

The Temple of Diana is the gathering place at which the book’s separate journeys converge in a communal wedding celebration. The evidence presents it chiefly through this concluding action: Felicia and the shepherds await the returning company there, and the temple becomes the setting for a collective resolution of several love stories, while the narrative also points beyond its ending to further events.

Identity and Narrative Function

The Temple of Diana functions as both a destination and a meeting place. After Felismena and Don Félix reconcile, Dorida invites them to travel with her to the temple, where Felicia and the shepherds are waiting. The invitation draws the reunited couple out of the immediate scene of their reconciliation and toward a wider community prepared to receive them.

The temple’s significance in the available account is therefore relational rather than administrative: it gathers characters whose stories have unfolded in different places and circumstances. The text identifies those assembled there, but does not describe the temple’s organization or specify its officers or procedures.

The Gathering and Reception

Felismena and Don Félix set out with Dorida after the invitation. They travel on horses taken from the knights who had attacked Don Félix, and Felismena recounts to him what happened while they were apart. Don Félix is astonished by her account, particularly by the deaths of the three savages, the house of wise Felicia, and the events involving the shepherds and shepherdesses. He is also struck by the realization that Felismena had served him for days as a page without his recognizing her.

When they reach the Temple of Diana, Felicia and the shepherds and shepherdesses receive them with joy. Felismena is especially welcomed: the assembled company holds her in high regard for her goodness and beauty. The scene makes the temple a place not just of arrival but of public recognition, where the sacrifices and adventures of her journey are recalled within the company she rejoins.

Weddings and the Closing Movement

At the temple, the assembled characters are married to those they love, and the weddings take place amid general rejoicing. The celebration gives the book a collective closing image, bringing its many experiences of separation, fidelity, and changing affection into a shared social occasion. Sireno’s arrival contributes to the festivity, linking the closing gathering to the earlier pastoral story centered on him and Diana.

The ending also preserves an opening toward further narrative. The text says that the consequences of Sireno’s arrival, together with the story of the Portuguese shepherd and shepherdess, Danteo and Duarda, will be told in a second part. Thus the temple closes the present gathering in celebration without making every character’s future definitive.