Wordplay and wordplay: Love at first sight

Yes, "love at first sight" is a phrase that appeared around the 20th century, for example, the sentence: "He was struck by love at first sight" in the novel Midnight Moon Falls (1963) by Binh Nguyen Loc (p. 15).

"Love at first sight" is a translation (or development) of "Coup de foudre"—an idiom that appeared in French in the 17th century, at which time "Coup de foudre" simply meant "lightning" or "a lightning strike." When compiling the Vietnamese-French dictionary, Jean Bonet also explained it this way: "coup de foudre - Lightning strike" (Dictionnaire Annamite-Français (Langue Officielle Et Langue Vulgaire) , 1900, p. 208). "Lightning strike" means "a lightning strike" according to modern grammar, associated with astonishment caused by a sudden, unpleasant event, and has nothing to do with love. Figuratively speaking, the term "is anxieties that are unpredictable, like needles piercing our hearts" (Antoine Furetière's Dictionnaire universel (1690). It was not until the end of the 18th century that the phrase took on a romantic connotation: "coup de foudre" means the sudden emergence of intense love" - Dictionary of the French Academy (Dictionnaire de l'académie française , 1798).

"Love at first sight" is an ancient phenomenon, a type of intense or frenzied love that the Greeks called "theia mania" ("the madness of the gods"). In the Bible, "love at first sight" occurs when Isaac first sees Rebekah (Genesis). 24:67), or when Jacob first met Rachel.

"Love at first sight" is a psychological effect, metaphorically related to "love's arrow" or "love's dart," phrases originating from the gods Eros or Cupid, sometimes from the god Rumor in Greek and Roman mythology.

During the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Baroque period, the "arrow of love" was a motif used by Provençal troubadours in southern France, especially in the 11th and 12th centuries, and later became part of the courtly love tradition in Europe. Literature features many stories of love at first sight, such as Romeo falling in love with Juliet at first sight (William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet - 1597); or Marius Pontmercy and Cosette falling in love the moment they looked into each other's eyes (Victor Hugo's Les Misérables - 1862)...

Vietnamese fairy tales also feature "love at first sight," such as the feeling of Truong Chi (son of a fisherman) meeting My Nuong (daughter of the prime minister) for the first time. While "love at first sight" in Vietnamese describes the feeling of "falling in love at first glance," the French use the term " Coup de foudre ," equivalent to " Love at first sight" in English, "Amore a prima vista " (Italian), or "Flechazo" (Spanish); and similarly, "Любо́вь с пе́рвого взгля́да" in Russian; " Hitomebore " (一目ぼれ) in Japanese; or "Yījiànzhōngqíng " (一見鍾情) in Chinese – the Sino-Vietnamese translation is "Nhất kiến chung tình" (Love at first sight).

Yes, Chinese literature also features many instances of "love at first sight," for example, the love story between Cui Yingying and Zhang Junrui in Wang Shifu's play *The Romance of the West Chamber* ; or Li Tianjin and Pei Yaojun in Bai Pu's play *The Horse on the Wall *…

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