世の中は 地獄の上の 花見哉 yo no naka wa jigoku no ue no hanami kana issa 一茶 In this world of ours, We walk above hell, Gazing at flowers

In this world of ours,
We walk above hell,
Gazing at flowers ^[1]

世の中は地獄の上の花見哉 (yo no naka wa jigoku no ue no hanami kana): this world is flower-viewing on the roof of hell.

Kobayashi Issa's verse defines this world in one breath. Life is a spring party under the cherry blossoms, held on the roof of hell. The poem does not tell anyone to leave the party. Readers have heard a Buddhist sentence in it, and laughter in its tears.

In the Japanese, 地獄の上の is on top of hell, its roof or its lid. 花見 is the spring outing with food and drink under the trees. The line has no verb of motion: the world simply is the party.

References:

^[1] After R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 1 (Hokuseido Press, 1963), p. 367.

Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 wrote the verse early in 1812 as the hell entry of a set on the six realms of rebirth, composed turn by turn with the priest-poet 鶴老, and entered it in his books Kabuban 株番 and Shichiban nikki 七番日記, the diary placing it in the second month of that year (13 March to 11 April 1812).

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