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Home › Library › Philology › Issa - In this world of ours, We walk above hell, Gazing at flowers

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

世の中は地獄の上の花見哉 (yo no naka wa jigoku no ue no hanami kana), this world of ours is flower-viewing on the roof of hell, is by Issa 一茶. He wrote it early in 1812 as the hell verse of a set on the six realms, with the priest-poet 鶴老. This study follows it through his own books, a century of Buddhist readings, and its English since 1957.

Japanese Scroll of Issa - In this world of ours, We walk above hell, Gazing at flowers (yo no naka wa jigoku no ue no hanami kana) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Issa - In this world of ours, We walk above hell, Gazing at flowers世の中は地獄の上の花見哉yo no naka wa jigoku no ue no hanami kana

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

世の中は地獄の上の花見哉, this world of ours is flower-viewing on the roof of hell, is by Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶, written in the first months of 1812 as the hell verse of a set on the six realms of rebirth, composed turn by turn with the priest-poet 鶴老 and entered in Issa's own books Kabuban 株番 and Shichiban nikki 七番日記. The earliest known print is a collected edition of 1908, and the verse's companions went into print without it in 1829, when Issa's pupils published the set with another verse under hell. Japanese readers from 1913 to 1941 heard a Buddhist sentence in it, and Takayasu Gekkō 高安月郊 in 1916 heard laughter in the tears. English has carried it since Mackenzie in 1957, most renderings adding a we who walk on hell's roof.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 世の中は地獄の上の花見哉, and every witness carries the same seventeen syllables, よ・の・な・か・は, じ・ご・く・の・う・え・の, は・な・み・か・な. The writing varies. The 1930 print of 株番 writes 世中ハ地ごくの上の花見哉, with the particle in katakana and hell in kana [1]; the 1927 print of the same book writes 世の中は地獄の上の花見哉 [2]; 七番日記 writes 世の中ハ地獄の上の花見哉 [3]. The collected editions of 1908 [4] and 1921 [5] and the 1928 index [6] write 世の中は … 哉; the essayists of 1913 [7], 1916 [8] and 1936 [9] end it かな; 勝峯 in 1941 writes 地ごく [10]. They are one text.

The sense. In Issa's own books the verse answers a heading, 六道, the six realms of Buddhist rebirth, and it is the verse he gave to hell [1][3]. The Japanese readers hear a Buddhist sentence. 角田浩々歌客 in 1913 says Issa does not explain, he makes the world directly the top of hell [7]; 高安月郊 in 1916 hears laughter in the tears [8]; 富士川遊 in 1936 makes it the view of life of a Pure Land believer [9]; 勝峯晋風 in 1941 glosses おらが春's flames of the hell of self-power with this verse [10]. In English, Blyth compresses it to an aphorism, Happiness is impossible without forgetting [11]; Hass, in 1984 and again in 1994, looks at the grammar instead and finds the verse's speed there, a run of possessives with no verb [12][13]; Lanoue reads it through the six realms, a world on a spring day as hell's opposite [14].

The words. 世の中は is this world, the human world, with は setting it up as the subject of a definition. 地獄の上の is on top of hell, and Mackenzie, Blyth and Hass hear the roof of hell; Hass's word-for-word gloss is hell's top's [13]. The ground of the party is the lid. 花見 is cherry-blossom viewing, the spring outing with food and drink under the trees; a spring season word. 哉 closes the definition as an exclamation. The line is a copula with no verb of motion in it: the world is a flower-viewing on hell's roof. 角田 said it in 1913: 一茶は說明せず、世間を直に地獄の上とし, Issa does not explain; he makes the world directly the top of hell [7]. As words the line says: This world: a blossom party on the roof of hell.

The verse in English. The earliest known English is Lewis Mackenzie's of 1957 [15]; then Blyth in 1963 [11], Stryk and Ikemoto in 1976 [16], Hass in 1984 and 1994 [12][13], Hamill in 1995 [17], Lanoue online [14] and Kern in 2018 [18]. Mackenzie supplies we walk, which the Japanese does not have, and Blyth, Stryk and Ikemoto, Hass and Hamill keep it; Lanoue and Kern leave the walking out.

The historical record

Early 1812. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶, 株番, the set on the six realms. 株番 is Issa's book of the travel years: the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 describes it as 江戸後期の俳書。一冊。小林一茶著。一茶が文化九年（一八一二）一月から同一〇年末にかけて下総、江戸、信濃を旅行したときの連句、発句、随筆などを収める, a haikai book of the late Edo period by Kobayashi Issa, collecting the linked verse, hokku and prose of his travels in Shimōsa, Edo and Shinano from the first month of 1812 to the end of 1813 [19]. Its text, printed by the 信濃教育会 in 1930 from Issa's manuscript in three books, has a heading 題六道, on the theme of the six realms, and under each realm two verses, one signed 一茶 and one 鶴老: under 地獄, ○世中ハ地ごくの上の花見哉 一茶, then 是がまあ地獄の種か花ニ鳥 鶴老, is this, then, the seed of hell: flowers and birds; then 餓鬼, 畜生, 修羅, 人間, where Issa's verse is ○さく花の中ニうごめく衆生哉, among the blossoms, the swarming of living beings, and 天上 [1]. The 1930 editors place these contests on set themes in Issa's stay with 鶴老, which began when he entered 守谷 on the twenty-second of the first month of 1812, which is 5 March 1812 [1][20]. 鶴老 was a priest, one of the friends east of Edo who gave Issa room and board [21]. The 1927 print in the 日本俳書大系 carries the same heading and pair [2].

1812, the second month. 七番日記, the verse diary. Issa's diary of 1810 to 1818 enters the verse in the second month of 1812, which ran from 13 March to 11 April [20]: under a small heading 六道, after 鳴田螺鍋の中ともしらざるや, the pond snails crying, not knowing they are in the pot, stands 世の中ハ地獄の上の花見哉; the page goes on to けふこそハ地獄の衆も花見哉, today even the crowd in hell go flower-viewing, and ちる花ニ佛とも法ともしらぬ哉 [3].

1829. 文政板 一茶發句集, the pupils' print. Published by Issa's pupils in 1829 for the third anniversary of his death, from verses they remembered and diaries bought at stalls [5], it prints the six realms in the 1812 order, with no heading in the 1921 reprint and without this verse: under 地獄 stands 夕月や鍋の中にて鳴田にし, evening moon: in the pot, the pond snails crying; 人間 keeps さく花の中にうごめく衆生哉 [5].

1908. 俳諧寺可秋, 一茶一代全集, the first collected edition, and the earliest known print. The editor sets the six realms down the page in his own order, 人間, 餓鬼, 畜生, 地獄, 修羅, 天上, and under 地獄 prints both the 1829 verse and this one: 夕月や鍋の中にて啼田にし, then 世の中は地獄の上の花見哉; under 修羅 the 1812 and the 1829 verses stand together [4]. The same volume prints the opening of 株番 [4].

1913. 角田浩々歌客, 漫遊人国記, a travel book with literary asides. The verse set against an older one: 伊丹鬼貫の「骸骨の上を粧うて花見かな」の吟を一茶の「世の中は地獄の上の花見かな」に比し, compare 鬼貫's "skeletons dressed up for flower-viewing" with Issa's "this world is flower-viewing on the roof of hell"; and the difference named, 鬼貫 explains and Issa states [7].

1916, reprinted 1926. Takayasu Gekkō 高安月郊, 東西文学比較評論, comparative criticism. In a chapter on Issa as 悲観詩人, the pessimist poet: 露の世の露の中にて喧嘩かな露と知りながら彼自身も喧嘩するのである。世の中は地獄の上の花見かな彼の淚には笑がある、笑には涙がある, "in this dewdrop world, quarreling in the dew": knowing it is dew, he quarrels himself. "This world is flower-viewing on the roof of hell": in his tears there is laughter, in his laughter tears [8].

1921. Katsumine Shinpū 勝峰晋風, 新選一茶全集, the second collected edition. It reprints the 1829 print, six realms and all [5]. Its 一茶俳句分類, the verses classified by subject, has a run of Buddhist topics down two pages, 開帳, 勧化, 經, 衆生, 六道, 極楽, 西方, 開山, 地獄, 鬼, 精進, 鐘; under 地獄 stand 地獄へは斯う參れとか閑古鳥, 露ちるや地獄の種を今日も蒔く, and 世の中は地獄の上の花見哉 [5].

1928. Katsumine Shinpū, 日本俳書大系, the index volume. Among the 世の中 verses: (株番)世の中は地獄の上の花見哉(一茶四六), between 世の中はくねり法度ぞ女郞花 and 世の中はよすぎにけらし艸の露 [6].

1936. 富士川遊, 新撰妙好人伝, lives of exemplary Pure Land believers. Issa is one of them, and the verse is his view of life: それ故に一茶は、自分等の生活の相をば『世の中は地獄の上の花見かな』『咲く花の中にうごめく衆生かな』と考へざるを得なかつたのである。明日をも知れぬ命をもち、しかもそれは地獄に墮つることは, therefore Issa could not but see the shape of our lives as "this world is flower-viewing on the roof of hell" and "among the blossoms, the swarming of living beings": with a life that may end tomorrow, and a fall into hell …, certain, they think nothing of it and view the flowers at their ease [9]. The two verses he pairs are Issa's hell and human realm from the one set.

1941. 勝峯晋風, 評釈おらが春. In the note on おらが春's closing passage on faith in the other power, where one who leans on it too hard is bound by its rope and drops ぼたんと into 自力地獄の炎, the flames of the hell of self-power, 勝峯 writes 株番に「世の中は地ごくの上の花見哉」の意である, this is the meaning of 株番's "this world is flower-viewing on the roof of hell" [10].

The dictionaries today. kotobank gives the poet's dates 1763–1828 in デジタル大辞泉 and 日本人名大辞典 (1828 because 文政10年11月19日 falls on 5 January 1828 by the Western calendar); the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and Britannica write 1827, the Japanese year [22].

The attribution. Issa's, in both of his own books, where 株番 signs it 一茶 against 鶴老's verse on the same realm [1][3], in both collected editions [4][5], and in every witness since that names a poet. Its source is named twice on the record: 株番, by the 1928 index [6] and by 勝峯 in 1941 [10], and 七番日記, in the diary itself [3] and in the title of a 1978 paper by 高田衛 [23]. おらが春, the journal of 1819, does not carry it. The English translators all give it to Issa and none doubts it.

What is not a source. 鬼貫's 骸骨の上を粧うて花見かな, skeletons dressed up for flower-viewing, which 角田 sets beside the verse in 1913, is by a poet who died in 1738 [24], a predecessor in the same thought and a pairing, not an origin [7]. 鶴老's 是がまあ地獄の種か花ニ鳥 is the other half of the pair on hell, not a variant [1]. The 1829 print's 夕月や鍋の中にて鳴田にし is another verse on the same realm, not a variant of this one [5].

The verse in English

1957. Lewis Mackenzie, The Autumn Wind: A Selection from the Poems of Issa, John Murray, London. Number 103: In the world's way— / On the roof of hell we walk / Gazing at flowers! [15]. The roof and the walking are his, the earliest known.

1963. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, volume 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 367. In this world of ours, / We walk on the roof of Hell, / Gazing at the flowers, and one sentence: Happiness is impossible without forgetting [11]. Mackenzie's roof and walking, reordered.

1976. Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto, in The American Poetry Review, then The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry, 1977. Never forget: / we walk on hell, / gazing at flowers. [16]. The roof is gone, and Never forget is theirs.

1984 and 1994. Robert Hass. In Twentieth Century Pleasures (1984): In this world, we walk on the roof of Hell, gazing at flowers, and the verse is constructed out of a rapid series of genitives [12]. In The Essential Haiku (1994), page 158: In this world / we walk on the roof of hell, / gazing at flowers; and in its note on translation he takes his own version apart: Yo no naka wa / jigoku no ue no / hanami kana … world's middle as-for / hell's top's / flower viewing! It's very fast, and a more accurate translation, This world: hell's roof's flower viewing, goes by too quickly to make a poem in English [13].

1995. Sam Hamill, The Sound of Water, Shambhala; again in The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku, 1997, in the selected haiku that follow the journal. In the midst of this world / we stroll along the roof of hell / gawking at flowers [17]. Stroll and gawking are his, and they are the earliest known English to hear the party as vulgar.

Undated. David G. Lanoue, Haiku of Kobayashi Issa, online. in this world / over hell... / gazing at blossoms, dated spring 1812, with the note that the verse is the first of a six-poem series on the six ways, and that it appears only in the 1812 version of the series, not in the 1829 one [14].

2018. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku. this world of ours: / viewing blossoms on the surface / above hell, and one line: A sober twist on clichés about how cherry blossoms make the world appear heavenly [18].

A reading

The verse is a sentence with a copula and no verb of motion, and I read it as a definition rather than a scene. Mackenzie's we walk turned it into a picture of people strolling, and most English since has kept the stroll; the Japanese has no stroll, only the world, the roof and the party. That is why Hass calls it fast. What the witnesses add is where Issa put it. Given the six realms as a theme, with a priest writing the other half of each pair, he did not give hell a picture of hell: he gave it a spring outing in this world, and he gave the human realm the same blossoms seen from closer, living things swarming among them. 鶴老 did the same thing from the other side, asking whether the flowers and birds are hell's seed. So the verse is a Buddhist sentence from the start, and the Pure Land readers of the twentieth century were reading what was there. What keeps it from being only a sermon is what 高安 heard: it is a party, and the poem does not tell anyone to leave. The pupils who printed the set in 1829 put a literal hell under the heading, snails crying in the pot, and lost the one verse in it that says the hell is here.

References

  1. 信濃教育会 編『一茶叢書』第七編（我春集・株番・句稿消息）, 古今書院, 1930, 株番 pp. 57–58, and the editors' 解題. National Diet Library pid 1186714, scans 50–51 and 15–16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186714/1/50
  2. 勝峰晋風 編『日本俳書大系』第12巻（一茶時代 第1）, 日本俳書大系刊行会, 1927, 株番. National Diet Library pid 1179395, scan 305, read in the NDL Digital full-text snippet only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179395/1/305
  3. 信濃教育会 編『一茶叢書』第四編 上巻（新校七番日記）, 古今書院, 1930, p. 143, 文化九年二月. National Diet Library pid 1186690, scan 90. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186690/1/90
  4. 俳諧寺可秋 編『一茶一代全集』, 1908, printed pages 34–35. National Diet Library pid 874846, scans 27 and 94. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874846/1/27
  5. 勝峰晋風 編『新選一茶全集』, 1921: the 文政板 一茶發句集 (1829) pp. 14–15, scan 25, its colophon scan 39, the editor's 解題 scan 251; 一茶俳句分類 pp. 434–435, scan 245. National Diet Library pid 970100. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970100/1/25
  6. 勝峰晋風 編『日本俳書大系』第16巻, 俳書人名地名索引, 1928. National Diet Library pid 1179400, scan 308. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179400/1/308
  7. 角田浩々歌客『漫遊人国記』, 1913. National Diet Library pid 950566, scan 209. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/950566/1/209
  8. 高安月郊『東西文学比較評論』, 1916; reprinted 東光閣書店, 1926. National Diet Library pid 953966, scan 32, and pid 953967, scans 31–32. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/953966/1/32
  9. 富士川遊『新撰妙好人伝』, 1936. National Diet Library pid 1185882, scan 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1185882/1/20
  10. 勝峯晋風『評釈おらが春』, 1941, p. 323. National Diet Library pid 1129783, scan 177. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1129783/1/177
  11. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1963, p. 367.
  12. Robert Hass, Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry, Ecco Press, 1984, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury0000hass_i8q4
  13. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994, p. 158, and A Note on Translation, p. 310.
  14. David G. Lanoue, Haiku of Kobayashi Issa, online archive, the entry for 世の中は地獄の上の花見哉. https://haikuguy.com/issa_modern/search_modern.php?romaji=jigoku+no+ue
  15. Lewis Mackenzie, The Autumn Wind: A Selection from the Poems of Issa, John Murray, London, 1957, no. 103, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index; the same text in the Kodansha International reissue of 1984. https://archive.org/details/autumnwindselect0000koba
  16. Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto, The American Poetry Review 5:3, May–June 1976, read in the Internet Archive's full-text index; The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry, 1977, read in the Penguin printing of 1981. https://archive.org/details/sim_american-poetry-review_may-june-1976_5_3
  17. Sam Hamill, The Sound of Water, Shambhala, 1995; The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku, Shambhala, 1997, the Selected Haiku section.
  18. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin, 2018.
  19. 「株番」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/株番
  20. 国立天文台 暦計算室「日本の暦日データベース」, 文化9年1月1日, 1月22日, 2月1日 and 2月30日. https://eco.mtk.nao.ac.jp/cgi-bin/koyomi/caldb.cgi
  21. Makoto Ueda, Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa, Brill, 2004, pp. 68–69.
  22. 「小林一茶」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/小林一茶
  23. 高田衛「化政期の文学的原質をもとめて : 世の中は地獄の上の花見かな(一茶『七番日記』)」, 『日本文学』27巻4号, 日本文学協会, 1978, pp. 36–46. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/nihonbungaku/27/4/27_KJ00010000958/_article/-char/ja/
  24. 「上島鬼貫」, デジタル大辞泉 and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/上島鬼貫

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 · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — every claim tested at its address; several corrections made — the account's 'eleven syllables' claim was a miscount, corrected to the true mora count; a second citation for the 1926 reprint restored to the leaf that actually carries the full quotation; the account's topic-header list found to silently drop headers present on the leaf, restored; an unflagged inconsistency between the account's own kotobank and Britannica death-year citations, resolved; and a paraphrase of Hass's closing words, corrected to match his wording

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 世の中は地獄の上の花見哉 (yo no naka wa jigoku no ue no hanami kana)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/yo-no-naka-wa-jigoku-no-ue-no-hanami-kana.