Marcela

Role: shepherdess · First appears: Part 1, Ch. 12.1

After Guillermo died of grief at the death of his wife, Marcela was left rich and still a child, in the care of her uncle, a priest and prebendary. When she reached fourteen or fifteen, her extraordinary beauty caused nearly everyone who saw her to fall in love with her; yet one day she abandoned her former life, became a shepherdess, and tended her own flock despite her uncle’s and the villagers’ efforts to dissuade her. She rejected every suitor without giving any the smallest hope, including Chrysostom, whom she scorned and rejected, bringing the tragedy of his life to its close.

While Chrysostom was away from her, suffering jealousy and suspicion, Marcela declared that she meant to live in perpetual solitude: “I told him that mine was to live in perpetual solitude, and that the earth alone should enjoy the fruits of my retirement and the spoils of my beauty;” Ambrosio later addressed her with indignation, blaming her cruelty for Chrysostom’s death. Don Quixote, however, publicly defended her innocence and forbade anyone to pursue her—“Let no one, whatever his rank or condition, dare to follow the beautiful Marcela, under pain of incurring my fierce indignation.”—while resolving to seek her and offer her all the service he could render.