The most engaging part of the poem is the prologue, in which Chaucer expresses his elation at the arrival of spring and his delight in roaming through the meadows, listening to the small birds, and gazing at the flowers. He is especially attracted to the daisy, which he can observe for hours without becoming bored. One spring day, after a walk in the fields, he falls asleep and has a vision in which the god of love and the beautiful Alceste, dressed in the colors of the daisy, appear before him. Cupid denounces the dreamer for having committed heresy against the laws of love in writing of Criseyde’s infidelity and translating the Romaunt of the Rose (c. 1370), with its disparaging remarks about womankind. Cupid’s companion (the same Alceste whom Hercules rescued from Hades after she had given her life to redeem her husband from death) rises to the poet’s defense by contending that he, having appropriated his plots from other writers, has acted out of ignorance, not malice. She concludes that he might gain Cupid’s forgiveness by writing a legendry of wives and maidens who have been faithful in love all of their lives.