At Nikitatsu, as we wait for the moon to board our ships, the moon has risen and the tide too is just right. Now, let us row out!
In the first month of the seventh year of Empress Saimei, the imperial fleet, bound for Tsukushi to help Paekche, put in at Nikitatsu in Iyo and stayed for a while at the Ishiyu Palace. This poem was composed when the fleet at last set sail from Nikitatsu.
To sail at night, you need moonlight and a high tide. Seizing the moment when the full moon rose and the tide came in, the poem calls out with force: "Now, let us row out!" It rings like a command that unites the many soldiers and rowers and sends the fleet on its way, and Princess Nukata is thought to have composed it on the empress's behalf.
But a note to the poem, citing Yamanoue no Okura's Ruiju Karin, gives another account: that it was the empress's own poem, composed in fond memory of a time she had come here with her husband, Emperor Jomei.
Where Nikitatsu was is not certain; there are several candidates, among them Mitsuhama in Matsuyama, the area around Dogo hot spring, and Komitsu. In any case, the poem is loved as one of the most stately in the Man'yoshu, and a stone bearing it stands at Dogo hot spring today. The fleet rowing out onto the moonlit sea was also a scene on the eve of a great turning point for the ancient state, which would lead to the defeat at the Paekch'on River.