Breaking with protocol, however, Hirohito cautioned against giving up on diplomacy too soon, and then recited his grandfather Emperor Meiji’s poem from the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, in 1904: “Beyond all four seas, all are brothers and sisters/Then why oh why these rough winds and waves?” Thus, Hirohito might have been seeking to express his view that Japan should avoid a war with the US, especially given that the country had been fighting a savage and unsuccessful war of conquest in China for more than four years.
但裕仁打破了默契，提出放弃外交努力操之过急，并引用了其祖父明治天皇在日俄战争开始时所写的诗句：“四海之内皆兄弟，何以无事起风波？”因此，也许裕仁一直在寻求表达自己的观点：日本应该避免与美国开战，特别是已经与中国进行了四年多残酷又不成功的征服战的情况下。