On Exactitude in Science . . . In that Empire, the Art of
Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied
the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province.
In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers
Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which
coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so
fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that
vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they
delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the
West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals
and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of
Geography.
Suarez Miranda,Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV,Cap.
XLV, Lerida, 1658
From Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, Translated by
Andrew Hurley Copyright Penguin 1999 .
Reminds me, somehow, of Kafka's aphorism....
Leopards in the Temple
Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs the wine in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally
it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.
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