The central thesis about Chaucer`s Troilus and Criseyde, proposed by Kittredge and virtually unchallenged ever since, is that it "professes to be a poem in praise of the God of Love and in celebration of his wondrous powers." Based on this thesis, many Chaucerians point out that "the moral" presented in the epilogue is not only obstrusive but also inconsistent with what has been related before: in the epilogue, human love is "dampned" as "blynde lust" or "worldly vanyte." If, however, we read the poem as an ironic and detached portrayal of human love, we can give full credit to Shanley`s argument that "the epilogue is no mere tacked-on moral but is implicit in the whole poem." As a matter of fact, Chaucer is not simply presenting us a love story "in praise of the God of Love"; rather, he is presenting a story whose surface appears a praise of human love, but behind which his critical vision of human love is tactfully hidden. Note, in particular, that Troilus wins Criseyde with "grete wit and subtilte" or with, as Pandarus puts it, "the worste trecherye," and pursues her for his own worldly "solas." Such an observation is, in a sense, summed up only in the epilogue, causing many critics to argue that the epilogue is self-contradictory. Viewed in this light, we may conclude that, by placing the moral at the end of the poem, Chaucer deliberately makes it difficult for us to catch what Troilus` love story hides behind, leading us to enjoy the surface meaning of the story from the beginning to the end. Thus, we get the wrong impression to the last moment that human love is a glory. At the end of the poem, however, Chaucer forces us to think over the deep or ironical meaning of Troilus` love story, and thus to re-read or re-understand the story retrospectively from the end. Were the moral given at the beginning of the poem or elsewhere, the seemingly bright side of the love story would lose its force, thereby decreasing our interest in the love affair of Troilus and Criseyde. By placing the moral at the end, the poet successfully secures the possibility of double meanings. Truly, as Pandarus says, "the ende is every tales strengthe."