"Let them fight it out," said Jurgen: "it is not my affair. I agree with Silenus: dullness will conquer dullness, and it will not matter. But do you, woman dear, take shelter with your kindred in the unconquerable Woods, for there is no telling what damage the Philistines may do hereabouts."
"Will you go with me, Jurgen?"
"My dear, you know very well that it is impossible for me ever again to go into the Woods, after the trick I played upon Phobetor."
"And if only you had kept your head about that bean-pole of a Helen, in her yellow wig—for I have not a doubt that every strand of it is false, and at all events this is not a time to be arguing about it, Jurgen,—why, then you would never have meddled with Uncle Phobetor! It simply shows you!"
"Yes," said Jurgen.
"Still, I do not know. If you come with me into the Woods, Uncle Phobetor in his impetuous way will quite certainly turn you into a boar-pig, because he has always done that to the people who irritated him—"
"I seem to recognise that reason."
"—But give me time, and I can get around Uncle Phobetor, just as I have always done, and he will turn you back."
"No," says Jurgen, obstinately, "I do not wish to be turned into a boar-pig."
"Now, Jurgen, let us be sensible about this! Of course, it is a little humiliating. But I will take the very best of care of you, and feed you with my own acorns, and it will be a purely temporary arrangement. And to be a pig for a week or two, or even for a month, is infinitely better for a poet than being captured by the Philistines."