This work depicts an act of a Kabuki play called Meiboku sendai Hagi.
In this depiction, Tsubone Masaoka is fighting off an assassin named Yashio, an enemy of her lord.
Masaoka's son, serving in place of the lord as a poisoner, was poisoned by a confection served by Yashio.

This is the showpiece part of the play, in which Yashio, the assassin and enemy of his son, is being defeated by Masaoka's ancestral dagger.