At 12:00 PM 5/26/00 -0700, Francis Gavin wrote, about the "gorillas" in
Canto 40:
>
>*Apes* here, not humans -- the temple and the ineffable crystal being of the
>goddess Tanith in CARTHAGE PROPER. To whom in any case, periodic ritual human
>sacrifice was dedicated.
>

All I know about the Periplus is what I've read in Pound. But the OED tells
us that our word "gorilla" actually derives from Hanno -- i.e., that when
Hanno called the Gorillae people, he meant what he said and knew what he
was talking about. The OED's etymology refers to "an alleged African name
for a wild or hairy man (strictly for  the female only) . . . hence adopted
in 1847 as the specific name of the ape _Troglodytes gorilla_, first
described by Dr. T.S. Savage, an American missionary in Western Africa."

Jonathan Morse