Quote Originally Posted by dtrq View Post
Well, yes, it's basically "farewell", "goodbye forever".
As for "forgive" part, I never really thought about it until now (I think many native speakers don't even realize it's same words), but probably it means "I'm sorry for all the bad things I've done to you so have only good memories about me as we will never meet again"
It's interesting to me that native speakers would not know that, but then again many native English speakers don't realize that the modern "goodbye" actually comes from a much older expression of parting - "god bless ye."