The strength of the emotion of "love at first sight" is shown by the ability of the phrase to come down to us exactly how it was used by Christopher Marlowe (and who knows how much earlier.)
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:08:51 -0400
From: nabokv-l@HOLYCROSS.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHT: "First sight" in LOLITA
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Mike Marcus writes:
“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”
Couplet by Christopher Marlowe:
"Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
Philip Sidney's sonnet #2, from Astrophel and Stella:
Not at first sight, nor with a dribbèd shot,
Love gave the wound, which, while I breathe will bleed;
But known worth did in mine of time proceed,
Till by degrees it had full conquest got.
I saw, and liked; I liked, but lovèd not;
I loved, but straight did not what Love decreed:
At length to Love's decrees I forced agreed,
Yet with repining at so partial lot.
Now even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone; and now, like slave-born Muscovite,
I call it praise to suffer tyranny;
And now employ the remnant of my wit
To make myself believe that all is well,
While with a feeling skill I paint my hell. "
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