5.1–4

Three additional monks from Brendan's monastery beg him to take them with him.  Otherwise, they say, they will starve to death (perhaps intentionally) as wandering monastic exiles. Brendan allows them to join, and says he knows that God will reward one of them for a good deed, but will punish the others.

Teresa Carp (1984) argued that the traditional single extra passenger has been expanded to a symbolic three passengers: one is good, one is evil, and the other is a mixture of good and evil.

[1] dē suō monastēriō: from Brendan's monastery.

[2] Pater, dīmitte nōs īre tēcum quō itūrus es: Luke 9.57: “And it came to pass as they walked in the way that a certain man said to him [Jesus], ‘I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest” (Sequar te quocumque ieris).

aliōquīn moriēmur in istō locō famē et sitī: the monks threaten a hunger strike, a traditional Irish practice when making petitions.

peregrīnārī diēbus vītae nostrae: in medieval Ireland pilgrimage meant not travel to a specific holy place, but an indefinite wandering, sometimes to Atlantic islands, for spiritual purposes.

[4] Sciō quōmodo vōs vēnistis: Brendan, thanks to his spiritual gifts, perceives that the three monks want to join him for different reasons, to be revealed later in the story. One is a genuine pilgrim who stays almost to the end (17.24–7), one is a thief (7.3–4), and one is guilty of an unspecified crime (24.7).

iste frāter: we infer that Brendan points to one of the three.

vōbīs autem praeparāvit dēterrimum iūdiciumus aliīs: Brendan points to the other two.  In fact only one of them has a truly terrible end (24.4-8).