1554 – 1594 The poet of the frontierBásnik pohraničia

The family that was about to lose this castle had already given the frontier its poet. Bálint Balassi was born in 1554 at Zvolen castle, into the same Balassa line, and wrote the first great lyric poetry in the Hungarian language — soldiers' songs, love songs and hymns — in the camps and garrisons of exactly this border war. He spent his life in the saddle between two empires, quarrelled with almost everybody, and died in 1594 of wounds taken at the siege of Esztergom, in the same long war that had cost his family its castles. The museum in the mansion here keeps a room about him.Rod, ktorý mal o tento hrad prísť, dal pohraničiu jeho básnika. Bálint Balassi sa narodil roku 1554 na Zvolenskom zámku, do tej istej balašovskej vetvy, a napísal prvú veľkú lyriku v maďarčine — vojenské piesne, ľúbostné básne aj duchovné spevy — priamo v táboroch a posádkach tejto pohraničnej vojny. Život prežil v sedle medzi dvoma ríšami, pohádal sa takmer s každým a roku 1594 zomrel na zranenia z obliehania Ostrihomu, v tej istej dlhej vojne, ktorá jeho rodu vzala hrady. Múzeum v tunajšom kaštieli mu venuje samostatnú miestnosť.