SOURCE: Perella, Nicolas J. “Fate, Blindness and Illusion in the Pastor Fido.” The Romanic Review 49, no. 4 (December 1958): 252-68.

In the following essay, Perella analyzes Guarini's use of imagery in Il Pastor Fido.

Fate appears in the world of Guarini's Pastor Fido as a force determining the lives of men, not itself guiding irrationally, but acting in a manner that is incomprehensible to man.¹ For years the land of Arcadia has been under a cruel law: the goddess Diana, enraged by the infidelity of an Arcadian nymph of yore, demands that a maiden be sacrificed annually and that any nymph guilty of betraying the faith pledged to a shepherd be put to death. The Arcadians have consulted an oracle in the hope that the will of Fate may be known and something done to abrogate the harsh law. The oracle prophesies that the present law is to be abolished...