Re: Jorge Luis Borges story

[Samuel Wheeler <SWHEELER@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU>]

On Sat, 11 Mar 1995 19:22:26 -0500 manuel utset said:
>I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who knows the citation to
>a story by Jorge Luis Borges about king's mapmaker who, in his effort to
>be accurate, makes a map as large as the kingdom itself.
>Manuel Utset
As a long-time fanatical Borges fan, I remembered this and
located it in Borges and Casares' Extraordinary Tales, a collection
of short narratives from a variety of sources (Herder and Herder, New
York, 1970). The Tale in question is on page 123, which cites as a source
"Suarez Miranda, Viajes de Varones Prudentes, libro cuatro, cap. XIV
 (Lerida, 1658)"  One assumes the sources cited in the collection are real
authors, as many indeed obviously are,  but this guy....
Looking at the passage again, this seems to be, in the words of the
Crash Test Dummies, a very subtle joke. I can find neither this author
nor this book in either the NUC or the British Museum.
Does anyone on the list know for sure whether this is just Borges
being Borges as I think? The narrative in full:
      ON EXACTITUDE IN SCIENCE
 ...In that Empire, the Art of Cartography achieved such Perfection that
 the Map of one single Province occupied the whole of a City, and the Map
 of the Empire, the whole of a Province. In time, those Disproportionate
 maps failed to satisfy and the Schools of Cartography sketched a Map of
 the Empire which was of the size of the Empire and coincided at every
point with it. Less addicted to the study of Cartography, the Following
 Generations comprehended that this dilated Map was Useless and, not
 without Impiety, delivered it to the Inclemencies of the Sun and of the
 Winters. In the Western Deserts there remain piecemeal Ruins of the Map,
 inhabited by Animals and Beggars. In the entire rest of the Country
there is no vestige left of the Geographical Disciplines.
            Suarez Miranda, Viajes de Varones Prudentes,  etc.

   This is Borges'or Casares' fabrication, right? If there is an
 unknown 17th cent conceptual genius Suarez Miranda, please let me know.
  Sam Wheeler <swheeler@uconnvm.uconn.edu>