Luscinda

Also known as: Lady Luscinda / his companion / the veiled lady · Role: noblewoman · First appears: Part 1, Ch. 24.2

From her earliest years, Luscinda loved Cardenio, and their parents expected the attachment to lead to marriage. At her urging, Cardenio sought her father’s consent, but Don Fernando, after becoming love-smitten with her and reading their correspondence, offered to arrange the match while secretly working to ruin him. When Luscinda’s father favoured Don Fernando’s suit, she warned Cardenio that she was being forced into the marriage and threatened to die rather than accept it.

Luscinda nevertheless consented during the ceremony and immediately fainted. A note then revealed that she could not be Don Fernando’s bride because she was already Cardenio’s; Don Fernando, believing himself deceived, tried to stab her, and she disappeared from her parents’ house and the city. Later, while Don Fernando held her, she recognized Cardenio by his voice and declared, “See how Heaven, by ways strange and hidden from our sight, has brought me face to face with my true husband.” She embraced Cardenio as her true master, and Don Fernando eventually accepted their union, though he and his companions later carried her away from the convent.

At the inn, Dorothea offered help to the veiled lady, while Luscinda was among those who welcomed the captive and embraced Zoraida affectionately. Don Fernando promised that news would be sent about Luscinda’s return to her home.