1819
.露の世は露の世ながらさりながら
tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
this world
is a dewdrop world
yes... but...
According to Buddhist teaching, life is as fleeting as a dewdrop and so one should not grow attached to the things of this world. However, in both poems Issa adds the phrase, "and yet..." His human heart clings to his lost children.
In one text Issa prefaces this haiku with the note, "On losing a beloved child."
John Brandi provides a succinct summary: "[Issa] says I know the world of dew is just the world of dew, yet I feel pain, I am alive"; qtd. in Nanao Sakaki, Inch by Inch: 45 Haiku by Issa (Albuquerque: La Alameda Press, 1999) 72.
This haiku is one of the "essential" 188 picked by the translator. back next