whit truer than the miracles of Mahomet. This seemed to him to fit
exactly the case in which he found himself, so, making a show of severe
suffering, he began to roll on the ground and with feeble breath repeat
the very words which the wounded knight of the wood is said to have
uttered:

Where art thou, lady mine, that thou
My sorrow dost not rue?
Thou canst not know it, lady mine,
Or else thou art untrue.

And so he went on with the ballad as far as the lines:

O noble Marquis of Mantua,
My Uncle and liege lord!

As chance would have it, when he had got to this line there happened to
come by a peasant from his own village, a neighbour of his, who had been
with a load of wheat to the mill, and he, seeing the man stretched there,
came up to him and asked him who he was and what was the matter with him
that he complained so dolefully.

Don Quixote was firmly persuaded that this was the Marquis of Mantua, his
uncle, so the only answer he made was to go on with his ballad, in which
he told the tale of his misfortune, and of the loves of the Emperor's son
and his wife all exactly as the ballad sings it.

The peasant stood amazed at hearing such nonsense, and relieving him of
the visor, already battered to pieces by blows, he wiped his face, which
was covered with dust, and as soon as he had done so he recognised him