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 Zrinski'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 Zrinski 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. Zrinski is several times compared to Hector in the text.