Re: Ex ungue leonem

The numerous ancient sources for *ex onychos ton leonta* are gathered in
Renzo Tosi's massive *Diz. delle sentenze latine e grech*e at #116 (out of
*1841* entries), starting with Sophon (fr. 110 Kaibel); he notes that it's
also found *in tutte le lingue moderne*.  #117, *ek tou karpou to dendron
gin=C3=B4sk=C3=B4*, is close enough to deserve attention as well.  All Tosi=
's sources
are Gk.; nothing in Otto & not, a bit disappointingly, a family motto (*Boo=
k
of Family Crests*, 1882).  Suggestion of hexameter line-end remains
attractive -- a challenge for Lat. Verse Comp. veterans?

JDee

On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 2:21 PM Ralph Hancock <[email protected]>
wrote:

> In 1696 the mathematician Johann Bernoulli, writing in the journal
> _Philosophical Transactions_, asked for a solution to the 'brachistochron=
e
> problem', What is the path of shortest time between two points A and B
> taken by a particle falling from rest under gravity? (The answer is a
> cycloid curve.) Six solutions came in, from Bernoulli himself, from Leibn=
iz
> ... and an anonymous one sent from England. Bernoulli recognised this as
> being by Newton, and remarked 'tanquam ex ungue leonem' -- [I can recogni=
se
> this] like a lion from its claw. This remark was not original, as it had
> already been written by Laevinius Torrentius in 1587. But it sounds like
> the end of a hexameter. A search on Perseus doesn't turn up the phrase.
> Does anyone know of any older use?
>
> RH
>