# Jihe yuanben 幾何原本

100.0 s · 100 s cut · Narrator: Clara · Reader: Yun

In Beijing from 1606, Matteo Ricci translated Euclid by mouth and Xu Guangqi wrote it down in Chinese, and because only their six books of plane geometry circulated for 250 years, the word 幾何, which had meant “how much,” came to mean geometry.

| Time | Voice | Line | On screen |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 0:00.94 | Narrator | In 1606 two men in Beijing began to put Euclid into Chinese. | The title column of the Chinese Euclid, 幾何原本第一卷之首, lies beside a red seal under one lamp. On “Euclid” the brush draws a wavy vermilion line beside 幾何原本. |
| 0:05.90 | Narrator | Chinese had no words for definition, axiom or proof. | The camera tracks slowly down the title column to 第一卷之首. |
| 0:10.34 | Narrator | The scholar Xu Guangqi read no Latin. | Cut to Kircher’s plate of Ricci and Xu, with the lamp on Xu. |
| 0:12.80 | Narrator | The Jesuit Matteo Ricci had learned mathematics from Christopher Clavius. | The lamp slides across to Ricci. On “Christopher” the film cuts to the title page of Clavius’s 1574 Euclid, and the brush underlines CHRISTOPHORO CLAVIO and then ELEMENTORVM. |
| 0:18.42 | Narrator | Ricci had tried once before in Shaozhou, around 1590. | Cut to Ricci’s preface in the Chinese book. The camera moves down one column and settles at its foot on 言象之粗而齟齬若是. |
| 0:23.05 | Reader | 言象之粗，而齟齬若是。 <br>*Subtitle:* “This is only the coarse layer of words and figures, and still it grinds like this.” | A warm light runs down the column in time with Yun’s reading, and a small circle lands beside each character she reads. The brush rings 齟齬 twice round. |
| 0:29.87 | Reader | 泰西，利瑪竇，口譯。 <br>*Subtitle:* Ricci translated by mouth. | Cut to the two credit columns on the book’s first page. A circle lands beside each character of Ricci’s column as Yun reads it, and the brush rings 口譯. |
| 0:31.72 | Narrator | Ricci translated by mouth. | The camera moves across to Xu’s column and back from the page. |
| 0:33.77 | Reader | 吳淞，徐光啓，筆受。 <br>*Subtitle:* Xu received it with the brush. | Xu’s column is read the same way, and the brush rings 筆受. |
| 0:36.08 | Narrator | Xu received it with the brush. | A slow push out holds the two rings, 口譯 and 筆受, side by side. |
| 0:38.60 | Narrator | Chinese mathematics was written from problem to rule. | Cut to a Qing edition of the Nine Chapters. Small circles run down the column 今有田廣十五步從十六步. |
| 0:41.76 | Narrator | In the Nine Chapters, each problem states a question, its answer and a procedure. | The camera travels down the column, and the brush rings 問為田幾何 on “question” and 答曰一畝 on “answer.” On “procedure” the camera pulls back as the brush rings the 方田術曰 column. |
| 0:47.96 | Narrator | In a commentary of 263 CE, Liu Hui justified the procedures by cutting figures apart and reassembling them. | The camera pulls back from the triangle figure that the Qing editors supplied, and three paper copies of the triangle lie on the table beside it. The regions take their colours, the cuts are drawn, two vermilion halves turn and close into the strip’s first rectangle, the other eleven rectangles print in place, and the brush marks the strip with 4, 6, 8, 10 and 24. |
| 0:57.86 | Narrator | Euclid names each object first, and every theorem depends on the ones before it. | Cut to Clavius’s 1574 Euclid, where the brush underlines DEFINITIONES on “names.” On “and every theorem” the film cuts to Proposition I.1 in the 1591 edition, and the brush rings the reference letters a to e and their notes in the margin. |
| 1:03.52 | Narrator | A definition became | Back to the first page of the Chinese book, which still carries the marks from the opening and from the credit lines. The heading 界說三十六則 sits under the lamp. |
| 1:04.90 | Reader | 界說 | The brush rings the 界說 of the heading as Yun says it. |
| 1:05.66 | Narrator | an account of boundaries. | The ring holds on the heading. The subtitle sets the whole sentence as “A definition became 界說, an account of boundaries.” |
| 1:07.17 | Reader | 凡造論，先當分別解說論中所用名目，故曰界說。 <br>*Subtitle:* “Whenever one builds an argument, one must first explain the names it uses; hence ‘boundary accounts’.” | The note column under the heading lifts off the page as a standing slip and casts a shadow on the paper. The camera travels down the slip, and the brush rings its last 界說. |
| 1:13.92 | Narrator | A, B and C are sounds, and a Chinese reader had no use for them. | Cut to Proposition I.1 in Clavius’s 1574 Euclid, with its figure lettered A, B, C and D. On “sounds” the figure’s ink lifts off the page as one indigo sheet. |
| 1:18.42 | Narrator | So they labelled the points with the Heavenly Stems. | On “So” the film cuts to the same figure in the Chinese book, lettered 丙, 甲, 乙 and 丁. The indigo sheet settles on it, with A on 甲 and B on 乙. |
| 1:21.60 | Reader | 甲、乙、丙、丁。 <br>*Subtitle:* These are the first four Heavenly Stems. | As Yun says each Stem, its Latin letter sinks into the paper and the brush rings the Stem. The rest of the indigo sinks and leaves four vermilion rings. |
| 1:25.24 | Reader | 幾何 | Back to the Nine Chapters page, where the brush rings the 幾何 of 問為田幾何 as Yun says it. |
| 1:25.80 | Narrator | was the ordinary word for “how much.” | The ring holds on the Qing page. The subtitle sets 幾何 at the start of the narrator’s sentence. |
| 1:28.22 | Narrator | Ricci and Xu used it for magnitude. | On “magnitude” the first page of the Chinese book slides in beside the Qing page, and the brush rings its 幾何 in 幾何府. |
| 1:31.56 | Narrator | Only the six books of plane geometry circulated for 250 years, so the word narrowed to mean geometry. | The two pages hold side by side with both 幾何 ringed, and after “years” the film cuts to the empty table under the lamp. 幾何原本 arrives in one column beside the title block, and a vermilion stop lands after 本. |

Times are where each line starts in the final, read from the film's own audio.