Rhetorical Question

A question asked without expecting an answer, either because the answer is already implied or because what matters is the doubt it exposes.

In Don Quixote

that driving a knight-errant mad with reason brings no merit or thanks: the trick lies in going mad without occasion, and letting my lady understand that if I do this when dry, what would I not do when wet?

"What would I not do when wet?" expects no answer: the gentleman leaves it hanging so that the lady, and the reader, conclude on their own that whoever does so much "when dry" would do far more with a cause.

Part One: The Penance and Micomicona, Don Quixote, to Sancho, in the Sierra Morena

who was the ignoramus who signed an arrest warrant against a knight such as I am? Who did not know that knights-errant are exempt from every court of law, and that their law is their sword, their charters their courage, and their decrees their will?

Part One: The Cage and the Canon, Don Quixote, to the constables of the Holy Brotherhood, at the inn

that is well said, replied Don Quixote. Books printed with the license of kings and with the approval of those to whom they were submitted, and which are read and celebrated with general delight by the great and the small, the poor and the rich, the learned and the ignorant, the common folk and the knights, in short, by every kind of person, of whatever state or condition they may be, were they to be lies? [...] and all the more so as they carry such an appearance of truth, for they tell us of the father, the mother, the homeland, the kin, the age, the place, and the deeds, point by point and day by day, of the knight who did them, or the knights who did.

Part One: The Cage and the Canon, Don Quixote, in reply to the canon of Toledo

did I not tell you a thousand times that in all the days of my life I have not seen the peerless Dulcinea, nor have I ever crossed the threshold of her palace, and that I am in love only from hearing tell of the great fame she has for beauty and discretion?

Part Two: The Printed Book, Don Quixote, to Sancho, in the streets of El Toboso, at midnight