A new arrival brings them news of a recent death. A young man of the village, Chrysostom, has died for love of Marcella, a coy and beautiful daughter of a rich merchant who has dressed herself in the garb of a shepherdess and pastured her sheep in the hills. So desirable is she that many suitors have dressed themselves as shepherds, driving their flocks into the hills in hopes of gaining Marcella's attention. While shepherds all over the hills are thus pining, sighing, and lamenting, Marcella remains deaf to all words of love and refuses to hear suits for marriage.
Don Quixote sets out the next morning with the goatherds to attend Chrysostom's funeral. They meet a party of shepherds dressed in black, and two gentlemen on horseback who are traveling in that direction. The knight and one of the horsemen, Vivaldo, enter into conversation about knight-errantry while they travel to their destination. At the burial service, one of Chrysostom's friends speaks. This young man, he says, so well-favored in appearance, talents, and person, has died for the love of a cruel and hard mistress. With him are to be buried the beautiful verses he wrote to immortalize the ungrateful Marcella. Vivaldo interrupts to beg that the verses be rescued from oblivion to serve as a warning to others to avoid "such tempting snares and enchanting destructions."
