My aim with this new edition of the masterpiece of Cretan literature was to provide a more authentic text, more faithful to the original form of the work. It has become clear that the edition by Xanthoudidis, despite the great conscientiousness of the wise Herakleot, diverges significantly from the poet's text.

Mr. Linos Politis has already noted that Xanthoudidis, overestimating the London manuscript, introduced readings inferior to those provided by the other source of the text, the Venetian edition of 1713.

We, following more closely the very reliable first edition edited by an unknown but capable Cretan scholar (which Xanthoudidis only knew indirectly), have restored the linguistic character of the text, bearing in mind that centuries separate us from the time of Kornaros and therefore the widely held view of the supposed absolute coincidence between the language of 'Erotokritos' and the modern Cretan idiom cannot be correct.

And I would like to remind here that already in 1943, Mr. E. Kriaras had characterized any adaptation of Kornaros's text to the contemporary idiom of Eastern Crete as the 'bed of Procrustes'.

[Excerpt from the text of the preface]