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 escaped she
would never cut them down nor burn them.
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