Ono no Komachi at Seki Temple, from the series The Fashionable Seven Komachi (Furyu nana Komachi)

Legend has it that the poet Ono no Komachi became a nun in her old age and lived in seclusion near Seki Temple, northeast of Kyoto. The once-famous beauty, ashamed of her aged appearance, repeatedly refused social invitations. In a poem associated with this period, Komachi expresses her desire to drift away like a reed on a stream because of her loneliness. In a scene that alludes to the poem, two women stop to speak to a man as he passes them on a riverbank.