Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

“Farewell” said in so may ways.

- Clifford Martis

Goodnight, goodnight! Parting is such sweet sorrow

That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow. – (Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet)

Our lives are full of occasions when we come together and then part from our family members, friends or colleagues. To meet, to know, to love and then to part is the sad tale of every human heart. The situations when we have to part are many – we grow up and leave our parents and the small hometown to go to the city for our higher education, we get a job and go to still bigger cities, we change jobs and go to different places and may be, go abroad, we get married and move to a different place to set up our own family and so on and so forth. Nowadays changing jobs has become very common and instead of the earlier pursuit of hunting for jobs people are jumping jobs. Going abroad is also a very common feature and almost every household has someone working abroad.

People use a variety of words and phrases while taking leave or saying goodbye. While those taking leave assure that they will come again the hosts wish them well. Interestingly, all the words and phrases used while taking leave or parting have the inner meaning that we part only to meet again. Therefore, though parting is sad it is a kind of sweet sadness because there is always a hope of meeting again.

The most common term used by the English-speaking people is ‘Goodbye.’ Other phrases are, farewell, byebye, so long, till we meet again, oheerio and so on. Goodbye seems to be a short form of God be with ye (You). The same sense is conveyed in the Urdu greeting ‘Khuda hafiz.’ Farewell again is a reduced form of the old expression ‘fare thee well.’ In recent times the younger generation has coined newer words and phrases like “so long”, “see you later” or just, “see you”. Many youngsters are using the Italian term