Whan maistrie comth, the god of love anon Beteth his winges, and farewel! he is gon! True love learns to give and take and does not demand payment for every wrong:-- Ire, siknesse, or constellacioun,[101] Wyn, wo, or chaunginge of complexioun[102] Causeth ful ofte to doon amis or speken. On every wrong a man may nat be wreken ... and the great lesson of married life is patience and tender forbearance in such moments of weakness. The story illustrates the text. Averagus has no word of reproach for his wife when she tells him what she has done, and Dorigen, on her part, shows a simple confidence in her husband's honour which almost makes us forget the impossible absurdity of the situation. After all, it is in Chaucer's women themselves, rather than in what he says about woman, that we see his attitude most clearly. In the character of Blanche the Duchesse he portrays an ideal which differs in many ways from the conventional standard of the day. Instead of the typical heroine of romance, whose sole thought is of love and whose sole desire that her knight may prove the bravest in Christendom, Chaucer draws a lively, quick-witted girl, whose consciousness of her own power and simple delight in her own beauty never degenerate into selfish coquetry. The medieval heroine considered it a point of honour to set her lover impossible tasks to perform for her sake. Blanche "ne used no such knakkes small." She sees no sense in sending a man ... into Walayke,[103] To Pruyse and in-to Tartarye, To Alisaundre, ne in-to Turkye, And bidde him faste, annoo that he Go hoodles to the drye see[104] And come hoom by the Carrenare;[105] and telling him to be ... right ware That I may of yow here seyn[106] Worship, or that ye come ageyn. Nor does she use any arts to enhance her beauty. She looks you straight in the face with those great grey eyes of hers:-- Debonair, goode, gladde, and sadde, and offers a frank friendship to all "gode folk." She utters no half truths, and takes no pleasure in deceit, nor was there ever ... through hir tonge Man ne woman greatly harmed. There is no touch of pettiness in her nature. One of the most delightful passages in the poem is that in which the Black Knight declares how ready she always was to forgive and forget:-- Whan I had wrong and she the right She wolde alwey so goodely For-geve me so debonairly. In alle my youthe in alle chaunce She took me in hir governaunce. At the same time she "loved so wel hir owne name" that she suffered no liberties to be taken with her:-- She wrong do wolde to no wight; and No wight might do her no shame.