In time, the cartographers became even more ambitious: they drew a map that was an exact, one-to-one replica of the whole empire. As Borges wryly notes, subsequent generations could find no practical use for such an unwieldy map.
而地图师的目标更加宏大：他们绘制了一张精确的一比一比例的帝国全图。博尔赫斯讽刺地写道，子孙后代根本找不到这张笨重的地图的实际用处。于是这张地图就这样烂在了沙漠中，和它所代表的地理学一起随风而逝。