The poem reads:
Muregame no Thronging turtles
hitotsu hitotsu no from each one
yorozuyo wo gathering
tori tsudoe tsutsu 10,000 years
kimi wo kazoe n. I count as yours

Box inscriptions:
Lid: Rengetsu ni kame no jigasan. Yokofuku (Terrapins painted and inscribed by the nun Rengetsu)
Label on box: Rengetsu kame (Rengetsu terrapins)

Otagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875) was a Buddhist nun, poet, calligrapher, potter and painter. Shortly after her birth in Kyoto to a samurai family with the surname Todo, she was adopted by Otagaki Mitsuhisa who worked at Chion'in, an important Jodo (Pure Land) sect temple in Kyoto, and was given the name Nobu. In 1798, having lost her mother and brother, she was sent to serve as a lady-in-waiting at Kameoka Castle in Tanba, where she studied poetry, calligraphy and martial arts, returning home at the age of 16 to marry a young samurai named Mochihisa. They had three children, all of whom died shortly after birth; in 1815 Mochihisa also died. In 1819 Nobu remarried, but her second husband died in 1823. After enduring the loss of two husbands and all her children, aged only 33 years old, she shaved her head and became a nun, at which time she adopted the name Rengetsu (Lotus Moon). Throughout her lifetime she produced delicate hand-built tea utensils inscribed with poetry and paintings with poems written in beautiful calligraphy, sometimes created jointly with fellow literati artists and writers. In 1875 Rengetsu died in the simple Jinkoin tearoom in Kyoto where she had lived and worked for ten years.