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

This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 逢うは別れの始め (au wa wakare no hajime). It spans from the Buddha's last sermon and a Tang poet's paraphrase of it, through a Heian love poem and a Noh chorus, to a blind prince's line on the Edo puppet stage, and examines a four-character term every Japanese source treats as scripture though no sutra carries it.

Japanese Scroll of Meeting is only the beginning of separation (au wa wakare no hajime) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Meeting is only the beginning of separation (au wa wakare no hajime)

Meeting is only the beginning of separation (au wa wakare no hajime) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

逢うは別れの始め, to meet is the beginning of parting, translates a Chinese line, 合者離之始, that Bai Juyi 白居易 wrote about 810 as a paraphrase of the Buddhist sutras' teaching that meeting must have parting. In Japanese the thought first appears as a lover's line in the poetry of Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家 and Fujiwara no Ietaka 藤原家隆 in the thirteenth century, and the proverb's own form is on the stage by 1693, in a blind prince's farewell to his music. The four-character term 会者定離, which every Japanese source treats as scripture, is in no sutra the Buddhist canon holds; the sutras themselves say 會必有離, and the four characters are a Japanese crystallization of that thought. English has carried the proverb since Hepburn's dictionary of 1888, and Hearn's list of Buddhist proverbs in 1899 gave it the only that English has kept since.

Overview

The sense. One sense and one use, from the deathbed sermon to the puppet stage to the modern novel: everything that meets parts, and therefore do not grieve. The sutra says 勿懷憂, Chikamatsu Monzaemon 近松門左衛門's prince says 思ふまじ歎かじ, and Nakazato Kaizan 中里介山's character says 歎くことはねえだあね. It is a sentence of consolation and resignation. The modern reading that turns it toward gratitude, that meetings are precious because they end, is the 一期一会 reading, and it is newer than every witness above; the older feeling stands beside it, not against it. The only movement is register: in the poets it is the lover's dawn parting; on the stage it is a blind man giving up his music; in the dictionaries it is 無常, impermanence, plain.

The words. 逢う, au, is to meet, and in the oldest Japanese witnesses it is the lovers' meeting: the sentence begins its Japanese life in poems about the parting at dawn after one night. 別れ, wakare, is parting; 始め, hajime, is beginning. A variant has 基, motoi, foundation, in place of 始め. The 1910 proverb dictionary's gloss is the plainest: 逢ふといふことあれば、既に別るゝことあるを豫期せざるべからず, where there is meeting, parting is already to be expected [1]. Under the Japanese sentence is a Chinese line, 合者離之始, what is joined is the beginning of what parts, and under that a Buddhist term, 会者定離, e-sha-jō-ri, those who meet are fixed to part, which every Japanese book treats as scripture. It is not; the sutras say it in other words, below.

The proverb in English. The earliest known English is Hepburn's fourth edition of 1888, which sets the proverb under the verb au: meeting is the beginning of parting [2]; the second edition of 1872 has the verb and no proverb [3]. Inoue Jūkichi 井上十吉's 英語学講義録 of 1898 repeats Hepburn's sentence [4], and Lafcadio Hearn's In Ghostly Japan of 1899 lists it among its Buddhist proverbs as Meeting is only the beginning of separation [5]. From there two lines run side by side: Hepburn's plain equation in Rose-Innes 1920, Blyth 1942, Okada 1958, Buchanan 1965 and Zona 1996; and the idiom We meet only to part in Saitō 1915 and Kenkyusha 1974 and 1983, with the 1946 Standard giving We never meet but we part for 會者定離 [6]. The house title is Hearn's sentence, only included. The English equivalent the ことわざを知る辞典 offers, the best of friends must part, is an English proverb of its own, from Chaucer to Scott [7].

The historical record

About 400. The Buddha's last sermon, in the Chinese of Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什. 遺教經 (佛垂般涅槃略說教誡經). The dying Buddha to the monks: 汝等比丘，勿懷憂惱。若我住世一劫會亦當滅，會而不離終不可得 … 是故當知，世皆無常，會必有離，勿懷憂也, monks, do not grieve. Were I to stay in the world an aeon, the meeting would still end; to meet and never part cannot be had. Know therefore that all the world is impermanent and meeting must have parting, and do not grieve [8]. The 涅槃經 (大般涅槃經) has the same thought in verse, to the layman 純陀 who has offered the last meal and begs the Buddha to stay: 夫盛必有衰，合會有別離, what flourishes must decline; what comes together has its parting [9].

About 810. Bai Juyi 白居易, the poem 和夢遊春詩一百韻. A hundred-couplet answer to his friend Yuan Zhen 元稹's 夢遊春詩; Bai's own head note quotes Yuan Zhen's preface and says that his reply's final chapter returns to the Buddha's way, 其章旨卒歸於此, as the 法華經 and the 維摩經 lead through the burning house and the brothel back to the truth. In the stanza that tells the friend to take up the meditation sutras and read, 欲除憂惱病，當取禪經讀: 合者離之始，樂兮憂所伏, what is joined is the beginning of what parts; joy is where sorrow lies hidden. The Chinese line is a poet's paraphrase of the sutras, and it is the line the Japanese proverb translates [10].

1232. Fujiwara no Teika, in the 洞院百首, a poem on the lover's parting at dawn. はじめよりあふはわかれと聞きながら暁知らで人を恋ひける, from the first I had heard that to meet is to part, and still I loved, not knowing the dawn. The 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives this as the first Japanese attestation [11]. Fujiwara no Ietaka, his contemporary, has the same figure: いつのまに年月のごと思ふらん逢ふは一夜のけさの別れを, when did it come to seem like months and years, this meeting of one night, this morning's parting. Every proverb dictionary from the Edo manuscript below to 1910 quotes Ietaka's poem under the proverb [1].

Thirteenth century. 平家物語, book ten. The four-character term enters Japanese: 生者必滅、会者定離はうき世の習にて候也, that the living must die and those who meet must part is the way of this floating world, said by a monk to Taira no Koremori 維盛 before his drowning. This is the 日国's first attestation of 会者定離 [12].

Fifteenth century. The Noh play 楊貴妃. よしそれとても、遁れえぬ會者定離とぞときく時は、逢ふこそ別れなりけれ, and even so, hearing that those who meet must part is not to be escaped, the meeting itself was the parting. The proverb's shape in a chorus. The wording is Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男's quotation of the play [1]; the 1908 typeset reads 遁れ得ぬ。會者定離ぞと聞く時は。 [13]

1693. Chikamatsu Monzaemon, 蝉丸, a puppet play. The proverb form on the stage. The blind prince Semimaru 蝉丸, told that his love is hopeless, throws down his biwa and plectrum: 『南無三寶叶はぬ事に迷ふたり』逢ふは別れの始め、獨りとゞまる道ならず、色も匂ひも一盛り、ア、思ふまじ歎かじと, "Heaven help me, I have lost my way over what cannot be"; to meet is the beginning of parting, and no one stays behind alone; color and scent have their one season; ah, I will not think of it, I will not grieve, and he sings his own poem on the Ōsaka barrier. Two acolytes then read the poem for him: 內には則ち會者定離哀別離苦の理、逢ふは別れの始めと示し, within it lies the truth that those who meet must part and that parting from the loved is suffering; it shows that to meet is the beginning of parting. The proverb is said to stop grieving, and the play calls it 悟, awakening [14].

1772. 三千世界色修行, a book of the floating world. At a courtesan's deathbed: 會者定離のことはり、今にはじめぬ事ながら、さだめなき世のならひ、あふはわかれのはじめぞかし, the truth that those who meet must part, nothing new, the way of an uncertain world: to meet is the beginning of parting. A commonplace by now [15].

Before 1841. 日本俗諺集, an Edo manuscript collection of proverbs. The etymology written down: あふハ別の始 佛書ニ會者定離之說あり是より出たる諺なり 白氏文集曰合者離之始樂兮憂所伏, to meet is the beginning of parting: the Buddhist books have the teaching that those who meet must part, and the proverb comes from that; the collected works of Bai say, what is joined is the beginning of what parts, joy is where sorrow lies hidden. Then Ietaka's poem. Two layers, Buddhist and Chinese, both right, and every Meiji dictionary copied them [16].

1910. Fujii Otoo, 諺語大辞典. 【逢フハ別レノハジメ】 with the gloss above, Ietaka's poem, the 涅槃經 line, Bai Juyi's couplet and the Noh chorus; the variant 【逢フハ別レノモトヰ】 with a citation from a book of 1720; and 【會者定離】 with the 平家 line, the 童子教 and the 遺教經 [1].

What is not a source. The four characters 会者定離 are not in the Buddhist canon. A search of the whole Taishō and Zokuzōkyō at CBETA returns nothing for them [17]; Ding Fubao 丁福保's 佛學大辭典 gives four sutra sources for the term and none carries it, each saying 會必有離, 合會有別離 or 合會有離 instead [18]. The 日国's citation of the Lotus Sutra's 譬喩品 for 愛別離苦、是故会者定離 checks only as far as 愛別離苦; the rest is not there [19]. The four-character form is a Japanese, or at least extra-canonical, crystallization of what the sutras say, first known in the 平家物語.

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 《白居易「和夢遊春詩一百韻」の「合うは離るるの始め」から》会った人とはいつか必ず別れなければならない。無常のたとえ. ことわざを知る辞典 has Kaizan turning it round to console: 会うは別れのはじめ、別れは会うことのはじめなんだから、歎くことはねえだあね, meeting is the beginning of parting, and parting the beginning of meeting, so there is nothing to grieve about [20].

The proverb in English

1888. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, under AU. hidoi me ni atta, met with, or suffered great trouble; au wa wakare no hajime, meeting is the beginning of parting. The proverb enters English as an example sentence under the verb, and the abridged edition of 1903 keeps it [2].

1898. Inoue Jūkichi, 英語学講義録, the composition exercises, page 56. Meeting is the beginning of parting. Hepburn's sentence to the word, set as a model translation on a leaf that also renders After a rain, the soil hardens and Even a monkey sometimes falls from a tree [4].

1899. Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, Little, Brown, "Japanese Buddhist Proverbs", page 168. Au wa wakare no hajime. Meeting is only the beginning of separation. Third in a list Hearn chose to illustrate certain effects of Buddhist teaching upon popular thought and speech. The only is Hearn's; the Japanese has none [5].

1915. Saitō Hidesaburō 斎藤秀三郎, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, page 805, under meet. We meet only to part. 逢ふは別れの始め。 An English idiom set against the proverb, beside I wish we could meet never to part [21].

1920. Arthur Rose-Innes, Conversational Japanese for Beginners. au wa wakare no hajime: the meeting is the beginning of the separation [22].

1942. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics. To accept short things as short, long things as long, the passage of time as the passage of time, to realise fully that meeting is the beginning of parting, life is the beginning of death, means to accept Reality: Hepburn's sentence as English prose, with no Japanese beside it [23]. Blyth's Haiku, volume one, has it the same way under the cherry blossoms: Meeting is the beginning of parting, and in the presence of such beauty this feeling of time is intensified [24].

1946. 竹原, スタンダード和英辞典, under eshajōri. We never meet but we part, for 會者定離, and not the proverb [6].

1958. Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau. Au wa wakare no hajimari. Meeting is the beginning of parting. This is a saying of Buddhist origin, with the variant hajimari [25].

1961. Brower, Japanese Court Poetry, Stanford University Press. Teika's poem of 1232 in English, dated there to his seventieth year: Although I heard / From the outset that a meeting / Can only mean to part, / I gave myself to love for you / Unconscious of the coming dawn. The proverb's first Japanese witness, translated, with the same only Hearn gave the proverb [26].

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, pages 164, 170 and 171. Under pessimism: Au wa wakare no hajimari: "To meet is the beginning of parting." This saying can be traced to the pessimistic philosophy of Buddhism which teaches that in this world we meet only to separate; and 生者必滅会者定離 twice, Living persons are doomed to decay, those who meet are bound to part and those who meet are destined to part [27].

1974 and 1983. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, fourth edition, and the New Collegiate, third edition. Under 会う: We meet only to part; under 会者定離, in the fourth edition: To meet is to part in this world. / We never meet but to part. / To meet and part is the way of the world [28] [29].

1996. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, page 77. Meeting is the beginning of parting. Hepburn's line to the word, a century on, in a collection that names no source [30]. Not in Galef (1987, 2000, 2012) or Trimnell (2004).

The equivalent. The best of friends must part. The English proverb the ことわざを知る辞典 sets beside the Japanese has its own history: Chaucer's Alwey frendes may nat ben yfeere about 1385, Chapman's Friends must part in 1611, Scott's The best of friends must part, Flibbertigibbet in 1821 [7] [31]. An equivalent, not a rendering: it has no meeting in it.

Today. JMdict: we meet only to part; meeting is the first step to parting [32]. The ことわざを知る辞典 offers The best of friends must part. The house title, Meeting is only the beginning of separation, is Hearn's sentence of 1899 to the word, and its only is Hearn's: word for word the Japanese says to meet is the beginning of parting, and has no only. What a rendering must keep is the plain equation of 1888, meeting and parting as one thing, and the tone, which is consolation rather than warning.

A reading

The proverb's Japanese life began not in the sutra but in bed, in poems about the dawn parting after one night, and its stage debut is a blind prince's line as he gives up his music. So the modern reading, that meetings are bittersweet rather than sad because they end and are therefore precious, is a good one; the older witnesses say do not grieve, this is the rule, which is what the sutra says too. The older feeling stands beside the newer one, not against it.

References

  1. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, 【逢フハ別レノハジメ】【逢フハ別レノモトヰ】【會者定離】, pp. 35 and 1104. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 33. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/33
  2. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, fourth edition, Z. P. Maruya, Tokyo, 1888, s.v. AU. Internet Archive japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishe00hepbuoft
  3. J. C. Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, 2nd ed., American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1872. National Diet Library pid 993689, scan 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/20
  4. 井上十吉『英語学講義録』, 英語学攻修会, 1898, 和文英訳, pp. 56–57. National Diet Library pid 869647, scan 31. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/869647/1/31
  5. Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan, Little, Brown, Boston, 1899, 'Japanese Buddhist Proverbs', no. 3, p. 168. https://archive.org/details/inghostlyjapan00hear
  6. 竹原『スタンダード和英辞典』, 1946, eshajōri (會者定離). National Diet Library pid 1126792, scan 73. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792/1/73
  7. Speake, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 2015, s.v. The best of friends must part.
  8. Kumārajīva tr., 『遺教經』(佛垂般涅槃略說教誡經), about 400, at CBETA (T12n0389, p. 1112b07–13). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0389&juan=1
  9. 『大般涅槃經』北本, 卷二, 壽命品, at CBETA (T12n0374, p. 373a26–b01). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0374&juan=2
  10. Bai Juyi 白居易, 和夢遊春詩一百韻, in 白氏長慶集 卷十四, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/和夢遊春詩一百韻
  11. 「あう【会】は別れ」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/会は別れ-2000309
  12. 「会者定離」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/会者定離
  13. 謡曲評釈, 1908, 楊貴妃. National Diet Library pid 876568, scan 70. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876568/1/70
  14. 木谷蓬吟編『大近松全集』, 1923, 蝉丸, pp. 128–129. National Diet Library pid 969896, scan 75. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/969896/1/75
  15. 三千世界色修行, 1772, in 『徳川文芸類聚』, 1914. National Diet Library pid 945808, scan 140. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945808/1/140
  16. 日本俗諺集, in 『輪池叢書』第30冊, undated Edo manuscript. National Diet Library pid 2533175, scan 58. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533175/1/58
  17. CBETA full-text search, 會者定離, zero results across the Taishō and Zokuzōkyō. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=會者定離
  18. 丁福保『佛學大辭典』, 會者定離, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/佛學大辭典/會者定離
  19. 『妙法蓮華經』譬喩品, at CBETA (T09n0262, p. 13a22). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0262&juan=2
  20. 「逢うは別れの始め」・「会うは別れの始め」, デジタル大辞泉・ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/逢うは別れの始め
  21. 斎藤秀三郎, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary (熟語本位英和中辞典), S.E.G. Publishing Department, 1915, s.v. meet, p. 805.
  22. Arthur Rose-Innes, Conversational Japanese for Beginners, 1920, s.v. au. https://archive.org/details/conversationalja01roseiala
  23. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, 1942.
  24. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume one, Hokuseido Press, 1981 printing.
  25. Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, 1958, s.v. Au wa wakare no hajimari.
  26. Brower, Japanese Court Poetry, Stanford University Press, 1961, in the discussion of Teika's late style, the poem Hajime yori.
  27. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, pp. 164, 170, 171.
  28. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th ed., Kenkyusha, 1974, s.v. あう and 会者定離.
  29. Kenkyusha's New Collegiate Japanese-English Dictionary, 3rd ed., Kenkyusha, 1983, s.v. わかれ.
  30. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain: And Other Proverbs of Japan, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996, p. 77.
  31. Wilson, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 1970, s.v. Friends (The best of friends) must part.
  32. JMdict, 「逢うは別れの始め」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/逢うは別れの始め

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations