Monday, January 31, 2022

An Unreasonable Feud

Once upon a time, a feud developed between two mapmakers. Professional jealousy is a terrible thing, and those mapmakers, Parvo and Foleri were their names, happened to be cousins as well. "Avoid your enemy and avoid your grudge," they say, but their family tree tripped them up when they tried to follow that plan.
They competed, and over the years, the city where they lived gained a reputation for beautiful maps. Their fellow citizens, to their shame, engaged in schemes to deepen their acrimony instead of striving to reconcile them, as good neighbors ought. Parvo labeled rivers, Foleri labeled streams. Foleri included a legend and scale, Parvo wrote names in different colors, sizes, and typefaces with the result that every feature could be understood at a glance from across the largest room.
Except, of course, for the dining hall of the ducal residence. Foleri decorated that with a map of the entire world, for he had been given the commission for that. He invited Parvo to view it, and while his map filled a wall, his pride filled the rest. "You have depicted a world. Very well, and yet I will surpass you in this way. My next map will be a world."
Foleri laughed at him and said Parvo had lost his mind, and perhaps he had. He went home, and he worked, and he worked, and he worked, and he made our world, which we call Parva. He invited Foleri to view it, who refused to concede anything even then. "Very fine, for a bare ball. Where is the sun? Where is the moon? You have no sense."
Foleri returned home and worked on maps of his own, and he made the sun, the moons (because he saw no reason to stop at one), and all the stars. That is why we call heaven the Folerium.
As to what happened between them after that, or what their world and heaven are called, I am not a liar enough to pretend knowledge, for everything I have told you is true.
Finis

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