I appreciated Mann's description of Chaucer as "commend[ing] the lecher, not for chastity, but for lechery- to enthuse, in fact, over his being the most lecherous lecher of all," yet I still had a difficult time gauging irony in the Prologue. For instance, Chaucer drops a snide comment about the Pardoner's sexuality ("I trowe he were a gelding or a mayre" 691) and the portrait of the Pardoner is generally quite scathing. Yet in a way, I feel on more even footing with Chaucer there; it's when he gives seemingly innocent, positive descriptions that I'm most wary. Chaucer praises the Squire in all respects, but there also seems something decidedly effeminate about him: "Embrouded was he, as if it were a meede/al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and reede" (90) "with lokkes crulle as they were leyyd in presse" (81). Is he being tongue in cheek, or genuinely approving?