It's almost mind-boggling to see the difference between INFERNO, Canto XVIII, and INFERNO, Canto XIX.

Canto XIX opens with a proem: a prefatory poem, to set up the action ahead. It's dense with Biblical, folkloric, and classical allusions. It also includes not one but two direct addresses: first to Simon Magus, a figure from both the New Testament and folklore; and second to "highest wisdom," a nearer approach to addressing God.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I begin to wrestle with one of the most complicated cantos in INFERNO: the denunciation of the church by its supreme follower, Dante.

Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:39] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XIX, lines 1 - 12 (as well as a little bit from the end of Canto XVIII). If you'd like to read along, just look below.

[03:38] The opening apostrophe (or direct address) to Simon Magus. No other canto in INFERNO opens as XIX does.

[04:53] Who is Simon Magus? Let's explore both his place in the New Testament and in an apocryphal book about Saint Peter that had become a part of medieval folklore in Dante’s day.

[08:37] Metamorphosis! Turning the things of God into gold and silver. We're continuing the "Ovid" themes of the eighth circle of fraud. And we can see that the pimps, seducers, flatterers, and prostitutes of Canto XVIII are still with us.

[11:52] A bit about the trumpet that sounds in the passage. It heralds the apocalypse--just as it has done before, back in Canto VI.

[14:31] A narrative insertion of one tercet (three-line stanza) in the middle of all these direct addresses. Why is the "story" inserted briefly here?

[16:12] The last tercet (three lines) of this passage is a second apostrophe (or direct address): but this time, not a denunciation but a prayer.

[18:19] Some historical background for this canto, including the problems that papal reform brought straight into the church.

[22:49] Who says these lines? Is it the poet or the pilgrim? Or both, for perhaps the first time?

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, XIX, Lines 1 – 12

 O Simon Magus, O tortured disciples of his,

You treat the things of God as fungible, you rapacious salesmen,

Bartering them for gold and silver,

Those very things that should be married to all that’s good.

Now let the trumpet sound for the likes of you,

Because the third pouch holds you in place.

We had already come to the subsequent trench,

Having climbed up the ridge to that part

That hangs out over the middle of the ditch.

O highest wisdom, great is your craft

In the heavens, on earth, and in the world of evil!

What’s more, how just are the lots your power ascribes.