Note 26 — JANUARY AND MAY:
Reading edition
"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.