The first English translation of Euclid's Elements of Geometry, by Henry Billingsley in 1570, is notable for the preface given to it by the mathematician, astronomer and alchemist John Dee. Though the implications for mathematical knowledge of Dee and Billingsley's work is well documented, less attention has been given to the social, economic and cultural assumptions demonstrated in this text. This paper aims to illuminate the imperial concerns evident in Dee's preface - which maintains a focus on the need for a common knowledge of abstract geometry in order to support the practical work of establishing and expanding British commercial interests, particularly those related to the quantifying of the world (through maps and globes) that Dee glosses as geometry's true purpose - whilst also suggesting the influence of the preface on contemporary developments in quantative, diagrammatic English verse and perspectival painting techniques (Desargues' subsequent break with Euclid over the theory of parallel lines being the case to be examined here). The poetry manual of George Puttenham (Arte of English Poesie, 1588) will be discussed as an example of this dissemination of Euclidian knowledge, with particular reference to its inclusion of geometrical diagrams as models for socially conditioned forms of poetic composition. The contemporaneous development of the 'Mercator projection' technique of map-making will also be examined as part of this paper's central thesis that the translation of Euclid into a common language was a way of establishing the importance of mathematical knowledge as a system to guarantee both economic and cultural dominance within the context of competitive Renaissance European imperialisms.