Dorotea. "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha"

Man or woman? Lady or princess? A well-kept secret that is asking to be discovered. Dorotea uses her powers of persuasion to get Don Quixote home. To the curate, the barber and Cardenio, Dorotea appears to be a good-looking labourer sitting on a rock washing his feet: how lovely and white they are! Then they see his long blonde tresses when he takes off his cap: he’s a beautiful woman! Dorotea explains why she is disguised as a man. The handsome Don Fernando, a duke’s son, seduced her with the promise of marriage and then abandoned her to court another beauty, Luscinda. Dressed as a labourer, Dorotea is seeking out Fernando to hold him to his word. She succeeds after endless adventures, as luckily the fickle gentleman ends up in the same inn where all Cervantes’s characters meet after leaving the Sierra Morena.