account of him; especially those that had seen him,
or had been present at any action or saying of his. So that he was
altogether in the same state of feeling as, in after ages, Themistocles
was, when he said that he could not sleep for the trophy of Miltiades;
entertaining such admiration for the virtues of Hercules that in his
dreams were all of that hero's actions, and in the day a continual
emulation stirred him up to perform the like. Besides, they were
related, being born of own cousins. For Aethra was daughter of Pittheus,
and Alcmena of Lysidice; and Lysidice and Pittheus were brother and
sister, children of Hippodamia and Pelpos. He thought it therefore a
dishonorable thing, and not to be endured, that Hercules should go out
everywhere, and purge both land and sea from the wicked men, and he
should fly from the like adventures that actually came his way; not
showing his true father as good evidence of the greatness of his birth
by noble and worthy actions, as by the tokens that he brought with him,
the shoes and the sword.

With this mind and these thoughts, he set forward with a design to do
injury to nobody, but to repel and avenge himself of all those that
should offer any. And first of all, in a set combat he slew Periphtes,
in the neighborhood of Epidaurus, who used a club for his arms, and from
thence had the name of Corynetes, or the club-bearer; who seized upon
him, and forbade him to go forward in his journey. Being pleased with
the club, he took it, and made it his weapon, continuing to use it as
Hercules did the lion's skin, on whose shoulders that served to prove
how huge a beast he had killed; and to the same end Theseus carried
about him this club; overcome indeed by him, but now, in his hands,
invincible.

Passing on further towards the Isthmus of Peloponnesus, he slew Sinnis,
often surnamed the Bender of Pines, after the same manner in which he
himself had destroyed many others before. And this he did without having
either practiced or ever learnt the art of bending these trees, to show
that natural strength is above all art. This Sinnis had a daughter of
remarkable beauty and stature, called Perigune, who, when her father
was killed, fled, and was sought after everywhere by Theseus; and coming
into a place overgrown with brushwood, shrubs, and asparagus-thorn,
there, in a childlike, innocent manner, prayed and begged them, as if
they understood her, to give shelter, with vows that if she escap