"the strength of war waged for a woman" (225). Significantly, Aeschylus' first reference to blood is to its innocence, a poetic way of foretelling that the domino-like deaths to follow should be viewed as equally unwise and unjustifiable. Helen, mythologically reputed as the celebrated cause for the Trojan War, is initially referred to as "the bride of spears and blood" (688) and clearly linked to death. Later, Aeschylus artfully represents her as if the blood-stained embodiment of death itself, naming her as a "wild heart for the multitudes" who "will shine in man's memory/as blood flower never to be washed out" (1459-60). Yet even as Helen is intensely identified with needless war and suffering, Aeschylus embeds her femininity and charm within images of flowering as if a wistful recalling of love's poignant inception.
In the beginning of the trilogy, blood is not yet granted its most threatening posture. The blood spilt by Paris' urgency is seen as "piteous" (715). The ari
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