Don Quixote asks Sancho if Tosilos gave out any news about Altisidora. They discourse until they arrive at the place where the bulls had trampled them. Don Quixote reveals to Sancho how he will live a pastoral life. He shall buy a flock of sheep and call himself the Shepherd Quixotis, Sancho the Shepherd Pansino, with suitable names for the curate, the barber, and the bachelor. Sancho is agreeable to try this new way of life, and they converse in this manner for a while. As it is getting late, however, they make shift with a slender meal and prepare to sleep in a field by the roadside.
Don Quixote again suffers a restless night from thinking of Dulcinea's enchantment. He awakens Sancho and suggests the squire give himself three or four hundred lashes toward the disenchantment of his peerless mistress. While they are arguing, they suddenly hear grunts and squeals resounding through the valley. More than six hundred swine come rushing out of the darkness, trampling the men and their beasts. While Sancho is full of curses, Don Quixote passively accepts the occurrence as a just disgrace for a vanquished knight-errant. They resume their journey and encounter some armed horsemen who take them as prisoners in a different direction. As night falls, the knight and squire are really frightened, but after an hour or so of riding in the dark, the company arrives at the ducal castle.
A carefully constructed tableau greets the startled gaze of knight and squire. Lit with flickering tapers, the stage centers on a huge tomb covered with black velvet on which lies the body of a beautiful damsel. Nearby are enthroned two theatrically attired kings whom Don Quixote recognizes as the duke and duchess. With a closer look, he also sees that the maiden is none other than Altisidora, dead of a broken heart. Now a young lad steps to the side of the tomb, singing a dirge which tells of Altisidora's hopeless passion and her sad end. Two other actors speak lines which tell that Sancho alone has the power to restore the maiden back to life if he accept the penance of being twitched and pinched on the face by six waiting-women and pricked by pins in his arms and backside. Overruled in all his panicked objections, poor Sancho suffers the duennas to come solemnly forth. After a few pinches, Altisidora finally stirs, awakens, and steps down from her tomb.
