Don Quixote, while walking in the hall, meets Altisidora with her maid. The girl feigns a swoon, while the maid scolds all knights-errant who are so ungrateful as to reject pure love. Accompanying himself on a lute, Don Quixote composes a song which he sings from his window that evening. The lyric counsels maids to retain their modesty and virtue and tells of a heart and soul faithful forever to the "Divine Tobosan, fair Dulcinea." When the song is over, a rope hung with more than a hundred tinkling bells descends over the knight's window. Furthermore, a sack full of frightened cats is emptied, and the noise made by yawling cats and tinkling bells is frightening. Some cats find their way into the Don's room, and scrambling about, they put out the candles. The knight slashes with his sword at the necromancers who have invaded his privacy, and one cat attaches itself to his nose and is loosed only by great effort. The ducal couple regret their joke, for Don Quixote is forced to stay in his room for five days in order to recuperate.
Sancho now seats himself at a sumptuous dinner table set with delectable fruits and viands. Every time that a dish is placed in front of him, however, the watchful physician at his side motions it away. He tells Sancho that the fruit is too damp, the meat too seasoned, and suggests that the governor eat only some wafers with a bit of jam. Sancho is furious at the doctor, crying out that to shorten his victuals is to shorten his life, not prolong it. The terrified physician is about to slink from the room when the governor receives an urgent message from the duke. The note tells Sancho that some enemies intend to attack his land and that spies have already been sent out to murder him.
