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By Root 1015 0

that they could not forgive her; before Don Fernando presented himself to them, they could not, if they kept their desires within reason, have wished for a better man than I to be their daughter’s husband, and she, before placing herself in the critical position of being compelled to give her hand, could very well have said that I had already pledged her mine, and in that case I would have come forth and agreed to any tale she might have invented. In short, I decided that too little love, too little judgment, too much ambition, and too much desire for wealth had made her forget the words with which she had deceived, encouraged, and sustained me in my firm hopes and virtuous desires.

With these arguments and this disquiet I traveled the rest of the night, and at dawn I came upon a way into these mountains, where I rode for another three days, with no direction or goal of any kind, until I reached some meadows, though I do not know on which side of the mountains they may be, and there I asked some drovers where I could find the harshest terrain in the sierra. They told me it lay in this direction. I traveled here, intending to end my life, and as I was entering these desolate places my mule collapsed, dead of exhaustion and hunger or, what I believe is more likely, to free itself of the useless burden it was carrying. I was left on foot, humbled by nature, broken by hunger, not having, and not planning to look for, anyone to help me. I do not know how long I lay there on the ground, but then I woke, and was not hungry, and there were goatherds with me who undoubtedly were the ones who helped me in my need, because they told me how they had found me, and how I was saying so many foolish things and raving so much that I clearly had lost my reason; from that time on I have felt that I am not always in my right mind, and my reason is so damaged and weak that I do a thousand mad acts, tearing my clothes, shouting in these desolate places, cursing my fate, and repeating in vain the beloved name of my enemy, having no other purpose or intention than to shout my life to an end; when I come back to myself, I am so tired and bruised I can barely move. My most common abode is in the hollow of a cork tree, large enough to shelter this miserable body. The drovers and goatherds who wander these mountains, moved by charity, sustain me, placing food along the paths and around the rocky crags where they know I may pass by and find it; and so, although I may be out of my mind at the time, the demands of nature allow me to recognize sustenance and awaken in me the desire to want it and the will to take it. When I am rational, they tell me that at other times I go out onto the paths and take food by force, though they willingly give it to me, from the shepherds who carry it up from the village to the sheepfolds.

In this manner I spend my miserable and intemperate life until it is heaven’s will that it come to an end, or my memory does, so that I cannot remember the beauty and betrayal of Luscinda and the wrong done to me by Don Fernando; if heaven does this without taking my life, I shall turn my thoughts to more reasonable discourse; if not, all I can do is pray that heaven has mercy on my soul, for I do not have the courage or strength to remove my body from this rigorous and difficult place where I have chosen to put it.

This is, Señores, the bitter history of my misfortune: tell me if it is such that it can be heard with less grief than you have seen in me, and do not bother to persuade or counsel me with what reason tells you can be beneficial or helpful to me, for it will profit me as much as the medicine prescribed by a famous physician for a patient who refuses to take it. I do not want health without Luscinda, and since she has chosen to belong to another when she was, or should have been, mine, I choose affliction as my portion when it could have been good fortune. She wanted, with her fickleness, to make my destruction constant; I want, by trying to destroy myself, to satisfy her desire, and it will be an example to those who come