Montano, the priest of Diana, seeks, therefore, to join in marriage his only son, Silvio, to the noble nymph, Amarillis, descended from Pan. But Silvio thought more of hunting than of love. The young shepherd, Mirtillo, becomes enamored of Amarillis, and she of him. The artful Corisca, desiring the shepherd for herself, charges Amarillis with infidelity--she is betrothed, though not wedded, to Silvio. Amarillis is sentenced to death. Mirtillo offers himself, and is accepted, as her substitute. Led to the--fatal, not the bridal--altar, Mirtillo’s identity is discovered. The shepherd is Montano’s son. Let us read the rest in the terms of the “argument” (as given in the 1782 English version): “On which Occasion, the true Father, bewailing that it should fall to his lot to execute the law on his own blood--(for to Montano, as priest, the office of carrying out the sacrificial rite belonged)--is by Tirenio, a blind soothsayer, clearly satisfied by the interpretation of the Oracle itself, that it was not only opposite to the will of the gods that this victim should be sacrificed, but moreover that the happy period (_i.e._, end) was now come to the woes of Arcadia, which had been predicted by the sacred Voice, and from which, as every circumstance now strongly corresponded, they concluded that Amarillis could not be, nor ought to be, the spouse of any other than Mirtillo. And as a little previous to this, Silvio, thinking to wound a wild beast, had pierced Dorinda, who had been exceedingly distressed by the slight he had shown to her violent passion for him, but whose wonted savageness was changed by this accident and softened into compassion--after her wound was healed, which at first was thought mortal, and after Amarillis was become the spouse of Mirtillo, he too became now enamoured of Dorinda, and married her; by means of these events, so happy and so extraordinary, Corisca is at length convinced of and confesses her guilt, and, having implored pardon and obtained it from the loving couple, her perturbed spirit now pacified and satiated with the Follies of the World, she determines to change her Course of Life.” The play ends with the wedding chorus for the hero and heroine (Luzzatto, too, wrote his plays for marriage celebrations). In words very like those used by Luzzatto, Guarini’s shepherds sing to Mirtillo and Amarillis: O happy pair! Who have in Sorrow sown, and reap’d in Joy, How hath your bitter share of grief’s alloy Now sweetened and confirmed your present bliss! And may ye learn from this, Blind, feeble mortals! to distinguish right What are true ills, and what is pure delight-- Not all that pleases is substantial good; Not all which grieves, true ill, well understood-- That, of all joys, must be pronounced the best, Which virtue’s arduous triumphs yield the breast.