逢うは別れの始め au wa wakare no hajime Meeting is only the beginning of separation

逢うは別れの始め says that every meeting already holds its parting. Where there is meeting, parting is to be expected, and the proverb is said to stop grief. It is a sentence of comfort and of letting go. The newer reading, that meetings are precious because they end, stands beside the older one.

The English title is Lafcadio Hearn's, from his In Ghostly Japan of 1899.

The Japanese proverb translates a Chinese line, 合者離之始, that Bai Juyi 白居易 wrote in his poem 和夢遊春詩一百韻 about 810, itself a paraphrase of the Buddhist sutras' teaching that meeting must have parting.

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