conceived for Herakles make him dream by night of his great exploits,
and by day determine to equal them by similar achievements of his own.

VII. As it happened, they were connected, being second cousins; for
Aethra was the daughter of Pittheus, and Alkmena the daughter of
Lysidike, and Lysidike and Pittheus were brother and sister, being the
children of Pelops and Hippodameia. So Theseus thought that it would be
a great and unbearable disgrace to him that his cousin should go
everywhere and clear the sea and land of the brigands who infested them,
and he should refuse to undertake the adventures that came in his way;
throwing discredit upon his reputed father by a pusillanimous flight by
sea, and upon his real father by bringing him only the sandals and an
unfleshed sword, and not proving his noble birth by the evidence of some
brave deed accomplished by him. In this spirit he set out on his
journey, with the intention of doing wrong to no one, but of avenging
himself on any one who offered wrong to him.

VIII. And first in Epidaurus he slew Periphetes, who used a club as his
weapon, and on this account was called the club-bearer, because he laid
hands upon him and forbade him to proceed farther on his way. The club
took his fancy, and he adopted it as a weapon, and always used it, just
as Herakles used his lion's skin; for the skin was a proof of how huge a
beast the wearer had overcome, while the club, invincible in the hands
of Theseus, had yet been worsted when used against him. At the Isthmus
he destroyed Sinis the Pine-bender by the very device by which he had
slain so many people, and that too without having ever practised the
art, proving that true valour is better than practice and training.
Sinis had a daughter, a tall and beautiful girl, named Perigoune. When
her father fell she ran and hid herself. Theseus sought her everywhere,
but she fled into a place where wild asparagus grew thick, and with a