A short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme.
The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up is a book by Robert Burton, published in 1621, but republished four more times over the next seventeen years with massive alterations and expansions.