The source code for this HTML page contains only Latin-1 characters, but it directs the browser to display some special characters. The original work contained a few phrases or lines of Greek text. These are represented here as Greek letters, for example Δεῦτε πῖδες, κ.τ.λ.. If the mouse is held still over such phrases, a transliteration in Beta-code pops up. Aside from Greek letters, the only unusual characters are ā (a with macron), ī (i with macron), and ć (c with accent).

An important feature of this edition is its copious footnotes. Footnotes are indicated by small raised keys in brackets; these are links to the footnote's text. Footnotes indexed with arabic numbers (e.g. [17], [221]) are informational. Any text in square brackets is the work of editor E. H. Coleridge. Unbracketed note text is by Byron himself. Footnotes indexed with letters (e.g. [c], [bf]) document variant forms of the text from manuscripts and other sources.

In the original, footnotes were printed at the foot of the page on which they were referenced, and their indices started over on each page. In this etext, footnotes have been collected at the ends of each section, and have been numbered consecutively throughout.

Navigation aids are provided as follows. Page numbers are displayed at the right edge of the window. To jump directly to page nn, append #Page_nn to the document URL. To jump directly to the text of footnote xx, either search for [xx] or append #Footnote_xx to the document URL.

Within the blocks of footnotes, numbers in braces such as {321} represent the page number on which following notes originally appeared. These numbers are also preserved as HTML anchors of the form Note_321. To find notes originally printed on page nn, either search for the string {nn} or append #Note_nn to the document URL.