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# The Abbess set me a task – to make her map of Paradise more precise
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/mne-abbatisa-zadala-urok-ei-kartu-raia-sdelat-potochnee/
- Published: 2024-07-10T10:59:26.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T09:19:38.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Faith, Geography, Maps, Books

The Abbess set me a task –  
To make her map of Paradise more precise.  
I told her – I am no Swedenborg.  
She said to me: be humbler and more meek.  
All night I toiled in vain and wilted,  
Until my Angel-Wolf flew in,  
He took pencils, paper, compasses  
And recalled on the paper all he could.  
But the Abbess said to me: "Put it away.  
Or burn it. For I asked you,  
All you want is to harness an angel,  
But where are your own sight and strength?"

*Literal translation*

The Abbess set me a task –  
That I should neither drink nor eat for a week,  
That I should look at myself from within  
As at one crucified – at the wounds of hands and feet.  
For a week I laboured so zealously –  
And it was summer, the thunderstorm hooted –  
When suddenly blue eyes opened as sores  
On my soles and on my palms.

*Literal translation*

I rushed to the Abbess – look!  
Stigmata! In blue blood!  
She replied: go back to the convent,  
There is neither pain nor love in you.

*Literal translation*

The Abbess set me a task –  
That I should fly in my mind to Jerusalem  
To the supper of farewell and love –  
And I sped off, throwing my body down on the floor.  
"What did you see?" – "I saw an evening.  
Everyone was coming from the market. Candles burned in the house.  
Twelve men, a cup and knives,  
Wine spilt on the table. In it – a fly.  
It was waving its little legs, but life  
In it, drunk, was growing dim..."

*Literal translation*

– "And the Saviour?" –

"Him I did not see.  
No, I will not lie. Whenever I tried  
To raise my eyes – they were burned out as though by the sun,  
A golden sphere glowed white-hot. However hard I tried –  
I did not see Him, I was left almost blind."

*Literal translation*

She smiled at me – "Do your little eyes hurt?"

And for the first time she was pleased with me.

*Literal translation*

**Elena Shvarts (1948-2010), an excerpt from the poem "The Works and Days of Lavinia, a Nun of the Order of the Circumcision of the Heart (From Christmas to Easter)"**

Illustration: a thirteenth-century world map from the London Psalter. The map, only 9.5 cm tall, was intended to illustrate the Christian picture of the cosmos, so at the top is not North but East, and above it Jesus Christ, pointing towards the North; Jerusalem is at the centre of the map. On the map one can find Adam and Eve in Paradise, Noah's Ark, Greece, Rome, Sicily, the Nile delta, Egypt, Ethiopia and the Red Sea

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_12763@10-07-2024_13-59-26.jpg)