Revenge of the Ronin

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios

Society & Culture, History

4.5 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

March 20, 1703. Today, almost fifty men, scattered around the city of Edo, Japan, are waiting to die. They’re all former samurai who had served the same lord – and they all carried out a deadly revenge attack in his name. Their story will go down in history as the legend of the 47 Ronin. Why did these men decide that to be loyal samurai, they had to die? And how did this moment live on for centuries and become part of the national story of Japan?

Thank you to our guest, Professor John Tucker, author of "The Forty-Seven Ronin: The Vendetta in History" and "Kumazawa Banzan: Governing the Realm and Bringing Peace to All below Heaven."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:03.0	This podcast contains descriptions of violence and suicide,
0:06.9	listener discretion advised.
0:10.6	History this week, March 20, 1703.
0:16.8	I'm Sally Helm.
0:19.2	It's late afternoon, the beginning of spring,
0:22.1	and about 50 men are waiting to die.
0:25.9	Their former samurai, and there's a special place prepared
0:30.9	for their death in the front garden of a rich house in Japan.
0:35.9	Three tatami mats stacked on top of each other,
0:38.9	covered with a white cloth, white curtains on two sides.
0:42.9	It's a ceremonial setting for a ceremonial death.
0:47.9	These men are going to commit sapaku,
0:49.9	which means ritualized suicide.
0:52.9	The ritual begins around 4 p.m.
0:55.9	The men are offered a final cup of sake,
0:58.9	they get ink and paper to write a note to their loved ones,
1:01.9	or to put their feelings down in a poem.
1:03.9	And then, one by one, they step up and pull out their swords.
1:12.9	Traditionally, a samurai would commit sapaku
1:14.9	by slicing his own stomach.
1:16.9	By the 1700s, that very painful version of the ritual
	...

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