He communes with himself in a speech full of dignity and beauty, but in some passages too poetical for the drama.[364] His daughter enters singing, and surrounded by a rustic group. This scene introduces a romantic episode which is interwoven with the main action, and the hero of which is a prince of Burgundy, disguised as a peasant, who is enamoured of the daughter of Don Vela. The scene again changes to the neighbourhood of Toro. The infanta Elvira appears on the battlements, and negotiations are once more set on foot. The king himself holds a conversation with his sister, which, however, produces no conciliatory result. This brief, pointed, and not very courteous dialogue, is interspersed with plays of wit on the word _Toro_, the name of the fortress, which in Spanish signifies a bull.[365] The king instantly commands scaling ladders to be brought, and the storming of the fortress commences, but the besiegers are repulsed. Thus the first act concludes. With the commencement of the second act the rural episode becomes more nearly allied to the main action. A sonnet in which the disguised prince of Burgundy, and his mistress Sancha, express their sentiments of mutual attachment, affords an instance of that protracted kind of metaphor, which Lope de Vega employed on such occasions, and which, a hundred years afterwards, Metastasio likewise adopted in his opera songs, as the poetic language of passion.[366] Don Bellido Dolfos prevails on the king to promise him the hand of the infanta Elvira, on condition of his taking the fortress. By dint of the vilest perfidy Bellido Dolfos succeeds; but the king, who is of opinion that a traitor should be rewarded with treachery, refuses to abide by his promise. Bellido Dolfos meditates revenge. Meanwhile Elvira escapes in the disguise of a peasant, and takes refuge in the house of Don Vela. With this combination of heroic and tender, domestic and rural situations, the action proceeds, until Bellido Dolfos murders the king; an incident, however, which does not take place oh the stage. The infanta Elvira returns to Toro, where she receives the homage of her people, and the prince of Burgundy avowing his real character, is united to his beloved Sancha.