The ninth-century poet Ariwara no Narihira, while traveling in the eastern provinces, stops at an inn on Ichiwara moor. In the middle of the night he hears a wailing voice intoning the first half of a poem: "When autumn winds blow through my hollow eyes, oh the pain, the pain!" (akikaze no/fuku ni tsuketomo/ aname aname).* The following morning he looks where he heard the voice and finds a skull with pampas grass growing through its eye sockets. Knowing that Ono no Komachi died on the Ichiwara moor, he understands that it must be the skull of Komachi. He completes the poem: "I hate to say it, but this must be Ono [a small field] overgrown with pampas grass" (ono to iwaji/susuki oikeri).** How might this image of pampas grass growing through Komachi's skull link up to the main theme and imagery of Komachi and the Hundred Nights and Komachi and the Stupa? In the image above, why do you suppose the artist, Yoshitoshi, does not include the skull?

*pun on aname: "aname" is an an exclamation of pain, "ana" means hollow, "me" means eyes.

**pun on Ono: Komachi's surname literally means "small field."