題知らず

Japanese

Examples

よみ人しらず　題しらず (yomibito shirazu, dai shirazu, ”Anonymous, topic unknown”)

春霞たてるやいづこみよしののよしのの山に雪はふりつつ

haru kasumi tateru ya izuko mi-Yoshino no Yoshino-no-yama ni yuki wa furitsutsu

Where are the promised mists of spring? In Yoshino, fair hills of Yoshino, snow falling still.^[1]

千里　題しらず (Chisato, dai shirazu, ”by Chisato, topic unknown”)

白雪の友にわが身はふりぬれど心は消えぬ物にぞありける

shirayuki no tomo ni waga mi wa furinuredo kokoro wa kienu mono ni zo arikeru

With the falling snows, old age, too, has descended upon my body, but my heart―ah, that remains unextinguishably young!^[2]

Literally “topic unknown”.

Some scholars actually translate this as “circumstances unknown”.^[3]

題(だい)知(し)らず • (dai shirazu)

(poetry) a 詞書 (kotobagaki, “explanatory note”) stating that the topic, theme, or occasion of a selected waka poem is unknown; also, the poem with the unknown topic, theme, or occasion

^ Haruo Shirane (2012) Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600 (Translations from the Asian Classics), abridged edition, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 93
^ Helen Craig McCullough (1985) Brocade by Night: Kokin Wakashū and the Court Style in Japanese Classical Poetry, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 379
^ Edwin A. Cranston (1993) A Waka Anthology, volume two: Grasses of remembrance, part A, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, pages 15-16
^ Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN