Rō nin (Jap.: rōnin, wave man) was a masterless samurai, an unemployed warrior. A favourite subject of literature and folklore, at one extreme he appears as a knight errant, driven on by a desire for honour and sense of adventure, while at the other he is a bully and a braggart. The subjects of Akira Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai are in fact rōnin, and the western gunfighters in its derivative, The Magnificent Seven, strike the right comparative chord. There were always rōnin in old Japan, and many thronged the country in the 17th century, after the confiscation of so many fiefs following the victory of Tokugawa Ieyasu at Sekigahara in 1600. The garrison of Osaka castle, which defied Ieyasu in two separate sieges in 1614-15, was composed largely of rōnin, thousands of whom perished.
The popular Tale of the Forty-Seven Rōnin, describing events of 1701-2, tells us much about the values of samurai society. The Lord Asano, daimyo of a fief at Ako in the province of Harima, was provoked into attacking an official, Lord Kira, within the precincts of the shogun's palace and in consequence ordered to commit seppuku. With his death his retainers became rōnin, and 46 of them, led by Kuranosuke Oishi, agreed to secure Lord Kira's death. They adopted a louche lifestyle to put Kira off guard, and on one occasion a Satsuma samurai, finding Oishi lying drunk in the street, spat on him. Eventually they stormed Kira's house and, when he declined to kill himself, stabbed him to death. They delivered his head at the temple where Asano was buried and then surrendered to the authorities. After a long debate—for their deed was recognized as one akin to filial piety—they were ordered to commit suicide, and buried with their lord in the Sengaku-ji temple. The samurai who had spat on Oishi apologized before his tomb, committed seppuku, and was buried beside the others.
— Richard Holmes
