The true national epic of Japan is the Tale of the Forty-Seven Ronin. It is not a tale that rates high in the world’s literature but the hold it has on the Japanese is incomparable. Every Japanese boy knows not only the main story but the subordinate plots of the tale. Its stories are constantly told and printed and they are retold in a popular modern movie series. The graves of the forty-seven have been for generations a favorite pilgrimage where thousands went to pay tribute. They left their visiting cards, too, and the ground around the graves was often white with them.
The theme of the Forty-Seven Ronin centers around giri to one’s lord. As the Japanese see it, it portrays the conflicts of giri with chu, of giri with righteousness – in which giri is of course virtuously triumphant, – and of ‘merely giri’ with limitless giri. It is an historical tale of 1703, the great days of feudalism when men were men, according to the modern Japanese daydream, and there was no ‘unwillingness’ in giri. The forty-seven heroes offer up everything to it, their reputations, their fathers, their wives, their sisters, their righteousness (gi). Finally they offer up to chu their own lives, dying by their own hands.
The Lord Asano was appointed by the Shogunate as one of two daimyo in charge of the ceremony at which all the daimyo made their periodical obeisance to the Shogun. The two masters of ceremonies were provincial lords and therefore they had to apply for instructions in required etiquette to a very great daimyo of the Court, the Lord Kira. Unfortunately Lord Asano’s wisest retainer, Oishi – the hero of the tale – who would have counseled him prudently, was away in the home province and Asano was na?ve enough not to arrange to pay a sufficient ‘gift’ to his great instructor. The retainers of the other daimyo who was being instructed by Kira were men of the world and showered the teacher with rich gifts. The Lord Kira therefore instructed Lord Asano with bad grace and purposely described to him an entirely wrong costume for his wear at the ceremony. The Lord Asano appeared thus clad on the great day and when he realized the insult put upon him he drew his sword and wounded Kira on the forehead before they could be separated. It was his virtue as a man of honor – his giri to his name – to avenge Kira’s insult but it was against his chu to draw his sword in the Shogun’s palace. The Lord Asano had conducted himself virtuously in giri to his name but he could only come to terms with chu by killing himself according to the rules of seppuku. He retired to his house and dressed himself for the ordeal, waiting only for the return of his wisest and most faithful retainer Oishi. When they had exchanged a long look of farewell, Lord Asano, having seated himself in required fashion, thrust his sword into his belly and died by his own hand. No relative being willing to succeed to the place of the dead lord who had violated chu and incurred the displeasure of the Shogunate, Asano’s fief was confiscated and his retainers became masterless ronin.