The papers presented in this volume represent the completely revised and rewritten record of the Eighth A. G. Leventis Conference in Greek, Edinburgh, 7–10 November 2013. That conference, in turn, was one of the many highlights of Professor Margaret (Meg) Alexiou's tenure of the University of Edinburgh's A. G. Leventis Chair in Greek. The conference and its surrounding events featured not only the scholars whose papers are presented in this volume, but also a diverse array of musicians and artists whose contributions turned the biennial Leventis Conference into a celebration of Greek culture. Meg's tenure of the Chair in general constituted something of a festival of Hellenic and Celtic civilisations, with frequent crossovers between the Greek and the Gaelic in the presentations and performances by which her presence in Edinburgh was marked.

Our premise was that Greek laughter and tears, if explored at key stages of recorded history, afford insights into the range and complexity of human emotions and interactions, modes of transmission, and potential for expressing and inciting opposite emotions, joy and sadness, sympathy and discord, sometimes both at once. We invited scholars, musicians and artists from diverse periods, with emphasis on the transitions from late antiquity (making the most of Edinburgh's international distinction in that field), while introducing Byzantium and modern Greek in what we hope will prove an enduring manner, thanks to the generosity of the A. G. Leventis Foundation.

For their assistance in making the conference the huge success that it was, we have to thank Dimiter Angelov, Alexander Lingas and Panagiotis Roilos, who presented at the event but whose papers could not, for various reasons, be published in this volume. As we noted above, however, the conference was in this case more than just a single academic occasion: its social programme began with Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Lucy Macrae in their presentation of Greek wonder-tale The Girl With Two Husbands (see jacket illustration and Appendix) and culminated, at the conference dinner, in a splendid performance of scenes from Euripides’ Trojan Woman, directed by Ms Lydia Koniordou of the Greek National Theatre.