Twenty-two cantos, dedicated to people who had a significant role to play in the author’s life and thought. Written in Dante’s terza rima, the metre used in the Divine Comedy, which features a triple rhyme. Kazantzakis regarded the cantos as “bodyguards” or “satellites” of the Odyssey and aimed to write 24 in all, one for each book of the Odyssey. In the event he only composed 22, which he dedicated to familiar figures:

• “Tertsina” to Angelos Sikelianos;
• “Buddha” to Michalis Anastassiou, his friend from Heraklion;
• “Moses” to Lia Lewin-Dunkelblumen, a friend from his Berlin days;
• “Christ” to Georgios Papandreou;
• “Mohammed” to the novelist Roza Chacel-Pérez Rubio, wife of the Spanish artist Timoteo Pérez Rubio;
• “Lenin” to bookseller Stamos Diamandaras;
• “Don Quixote” to Panait Istrati;
• “Alexander the Great” to Ion Dragoumis;
• “Genghis Khan” to the author Petros Vlastos;
• “Hideyohi” to Emile Hourmouzios and his wife Marika;
• “Toda Raba” to Yiannis Manglis;
• “Dante” to Lefteris Alexiou;
•  “Shakespeare” to doctor N. Sbarounis;
• “Leonardo” to German artist Conrad Westphal;
• “Greco” to Pantelis Prevelakis;
• “Nietzsche” to Helmut von den Steinen, the German translator of Freedom or Death;
• “Saint Theresa” to the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez;
• “Eleni” is without a dedication, but is obviously for Eleni Samios;
• “Psycharis” to D. P. Petrokokkinos;
• “Grandfather – Father – Grandson” to Tea Anemoyianni;
• “To the Self”, to Manolis G. Chatzigeorgiou, his friend from Heraklion.

Kazantzakis wrote the first canta from 1932 to 1937, in various different locations throughout the world. The first to be written was “Dante” (Spain 1932) and the last was “Grandfather – Father – Grandson” (Aegina 1937). A few canta were published in literary magazines, either in part or in full:

• “Dante”, O Kyklos, issue 4 (June 1933) 134-141
• “Psycharis”, Ellinika Fylla (Christmas and New Year 1936) 260-261
• “To the Self”, Makedonikes Imeres, issue 1 (February 1936) 9-14
• “Christ”, Nea Estia vol. 22, issue 259 (1.9.1937) pp. 1121-1125 [166 lines]
• “Greco”, Neoellinika Grammata (4.6.1938)
• “Shakespeare”, Nea Estia vol. 23, issue 267 (1.2.1938) 145-149
• “Nietzsche”, Nea Estia vol. 23, issue 279 (1.8.1938) pp. 1009-1013

• N. Kazantzakis, Tertsines, edited by E. C. Kasdaglis, Athens: Konstantinidis and Michalas Press 1960
• N. Kazantzakis, Tertsines, edited by E. C. Kasdaglis, Athens (undated)
• Apo to piitiko ergo tou N. Kazantzaki, with a prologue by Manolis Karellis. Introduction, selection and notes by Stylianos Alexiou, illustrations by N. Chatzikyriakos-Gikas, Heraklion, Crete: Municipality of Crete 1977 – an anthology of excerpts.

• Nikos Kazantzakis, Los tercetos a España, translated into English by José Antonio Moreno Jurado, Huelva: Fundación el Monte [1997] – “Don Quixote”, “Greco” and “Saint Theresa”

• • Phaedon Priftis, “Lenin” and “Moses” set to music