The Siege of Sziget

The Siege of Sziget or The Peril of Sziget (Hungarian: Szigeti veszedelem, Latin: Obsidionis Szigetianae, Croatian: Opsada Sigeta) is a Hungarian epic poem in fifteen parts, written by Miklós Zrínyi in 1647 and published in 1651, about the final battle of his great-grandfather Miklós Zrínyi against the Ottomans in 1566.

The poem recounts in epic fashion the Battle of Szigetvár, in which a vastly outnumbered Croatian-Hungarian army tried to resist a Turkish invasion. The battle concluded when Captain Zrínyi's forces, having been greatly depleted, left the fortress walls in a famous onslaught. Approximately four hundred troops forayed into the Turkish camp. The epic concludes with Zrínyi killing Sultan Suleiman I, before being gunned down by janissaries. Being in the epic tradition, specifically modeled on the Iliad and the Gerusalemme Liberata, it opens with an invocation of a muse (in this case, the Virgin Mary), and often features supernatural elements; Cupid even appears in Part XII. Zrínyi is several times compared to Hector in the text.