Meeting is only the beginning of separation

逢うは別れの始め (au wa wakare no hajime): to meet is the beginning of parting. Every meeting already holds its parting, and the old sources say it to stop grieving. The thought is the dying Buddha's, in his last sermon, telling the monks that to meet and never part cannot be had. Its Japanese life began in a love poem of 1232, about the dawn parting after one night, and it reached the stage by 1693 as a blind prince's line as he gives up his music. The modern reading, that meetings are precious because they end, is the newer feeling, and it stands beside the older one. The Japanese says it plainly, without the English title's only.