Ōkimi wa kami ni shi maseba mizutori no sudaku minuma o miyako to nashitsu

大君は神にしませば水鳥の
すだく水沼を都と成しつ

Roma-ji: Ōkimi wa kami ni shi maseba mizutori no sudaku minuma o miyako to nashitsu
English Translation: Our sovereign lord,
being a god among us,
where the waterbirds
gather in the reedy marsh,
has made it a capital
Meaning: Our sovereign, being a god, has turned marshes where waterbirds flock together into a royal capital.
Commentary: Book Nineteen 4261

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Two poems from after the pacification of the disturbance of the year Jinshin"
Like the preceding poem, it praises Emperor Tenmu's building of the Kiyomihara palace at Asuka after the Jinshin War: our sovereign, being a god, has turned marshes where waterbirds flock into a capital.
It shares its first two lines and its last line with the preceding poem, replacing "paddies where red horses wade belly-deep" with "marshes where waterbirds flock" in a paired structure, and the two were transmitted as a set. The text carries an original note, "author not yet known," and the author is unidentified. The left note says, "The above two poems were heard on the second day of the second month of Tenpyō Shōhō 4 and recorded here at once," telling us Yakamochi heard and wrote them down on that day in 752.

First line, "ōkimi wa" (our sovereign), is the same as the preceding poem, showing the two form a pair.
Second line, "kami ni shi maseba" (being a god), also matches, a set phrase praising the emperor as divine.
Third line, "mizutori no" (where waterbirds), corresponds to "akagoma no" (where red horses) in the preceding poem.
Fourth line, "sudaku minuma o" (the marshes where they flock): "sudaku" means to gather in crowds, and "minuma" is a pool or marsh, matched against "paddies they wade belly-deep."
Fifth line, "miyako to nashitsu" (he has made into a capital), is the same last line as the preceding poem, rounding off the pair.
Source: Manyoshu
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