24.4–10

The last of the three extra monks (from chapter 5) leaps from the boat and starts walking to the base of the cliff; he shouts that he is being taken away by force.  The other monks in fear head back out to sea and pray to God.  They see the lost monk carried off by demons and burned, and Brendan tells him that he has deserved this fate.  As the monks sail south they see the the mountain, which had been smoky, is now on fire: it seems to exhale and inhale flames, and the whole mountain looks like one huge funeral pyre.

[4] ex tribus frātribus: see 5.1.

[5] praedor ā vōbīs: “I am snatched away from you”; in CL praedor is deponent, “to seize as plunder.”

nōn habeō potestātem ut possim: the pleonasm reflects the monk’s helplessness

[6] Miserēre nōbīs: CL would be miserēre nostrī.

[7] quōmodo dūcēbātur īnfēlīx: sc. frāter.

ā multitūdine daemonum: ā here means “at the hands of," "by” (OLD 20).

et quōmodo incendēbātur: apparently he is destroyed by the flow of lava.

[8] in vītā tuā meritī tālem fīnem!: “such an outcome of what you have deserved in your life.”  meritum can be an appropriate but unpleasant recompense for bad behavior (OLD 3b).  We never learn what the monk did that was so unforgivable.

[9] ā longē retrō: “a long way back.”

[10] discoopertum ā fūmō: “freed from the covering of smoke.”

ā sē spūmantem flammās: “spewing flames away from itself.”

ad sē eāsdem flammās respīrantem: the volcano also inhales its flames. It is reacting to its absorption of the poor monk, apparently by vigorously breathing (or belching?) out and in.

usque in mare: i.e. from the top of the mountain "all the way down to the sea."