Democritus Jr. Jr.

Sentences randomly selected from Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy.

This app presents an edition of Robert Burton’s 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, first published in 1621. The Anatomy of Melancholy is an enormous book, best dipped into in small doses; this app presents randomly chosen sentences from its prose, that you might use them as a kind of Sortes Vergilianae, where a sentence chosen at random might prove helpful for predicting the future or deciding what to do next. If what comes up at first is not suitable, simply tap on the Another button. There is a great deal of Latin and Greek in the book, left untranslated; if you don’t want to bother with that, tap on the No Latin or No Greek buttons in the lower right.