[26] "And may serve my turn" is one of Dryden's familiar colloquial terms, happily used. Dryden among other excellencies of a varied style was happy in the use of such terms.—Warton.
The phrase fails to convey the conception of Chaucer, that the knight too much smitten by the charms of May to consider anything else of the slightest importance.
All were it so she were of small degree,
Sufficeth him her youth and her beaute.
[27] The humour is brought out by Chaucer with increased force from his dwelling with greater detail on the fond conviction of January that the only risk he runs in marriage is from the excess of the felicity. He says he stands aghast when he contemplates passing his life in that perfect peace, and blessedness,
As alle wedded men do with their wives,
and trembles to think that he shall have his heaven upon earth.
This is my dread, and ye my brethren twey
Assoileth me this question I you pray.
And when they saw that it must needis be,
They wroughten so by sleight and wise treate,
That she, this maiden, which that Maybus hight,
As hastily as ever that she might,
Shall wedded be unto this January.
[29] Dryden's Palamon and Arcite: