The last minutes of Minamoto Yorimasa's life; he was about to commit the suicide after losing his war against the Taira to install Prince Takakura as Emperor. According to legend, he wrote this poem right before he did it:

Like a fossil tree
On which never flowers grow
So truly am I.
Sadness has been all my life
Without any hope of fruit.

Yorimasa was a hero once; the best of his clan's archers, and the previous Emperor gave him the famous sword named 'The Lion King' ('shishio'), or at least so said the legend. One wrong step and all that was gone.

The tradition of honorable suicide ('seppuku' in Japanese) started from this one; Minamoto Yorimasa was the 'founder' of the act that later came to be inseparable from a samurai's code of honor.

Minamoto Yoshitomo -- father of Yoritomo and Yoshitsune -- is depicted in an ancient screen as forcing Emperor Nijo to enter the carriage in his attempt to seize power. He was fighting the Taira, not the Throne, yet having the person of the Emperor meant getting the entire realm. So the wars those days were over Imperial successions, every clan wanted their own candidate to be one. Yoshitomo's fault was losing the war; so he got executed and all his family were to follow.

Grave of Minamoto Yorimasa in Seki