GDG 80
This poem tells of the poet's unsuccessful attempt to visit a married woman in her house at night. The central metaphor is that of the house as a castle, and this would have been a visually effective metaphor since Norman castle architecture did influence stone houses of the period (see Johnston, 1983, 7). A castle would have a gatekeeper guarding its entrance, as would the town around the castle (see Bowen, 1977, 201). It seems that the yard and outhouses represent the town around the castle. The first of the three gatekeepers is a dog which attacks the poet from a pigsty. The second is the squeaking door of the house itself, and the third is an old maidservant inside the house. The image is then developed as the poet lays siege to the house after his first attack is repulsed, firing arrows of love at his sweetheart through the wall. Although he fails to gain entry, he takes comfort at the end of the poem in the fact that God has given him the freedom of the woods and fields, and this can be seen to refer to the situation of the Welsh who were often excluded from the fortified towns in the fourteenth century.
The imagery of the poem may have been inspired by literary influences. Ovid's Amores I, ix, compares the lover seeking entry to his sweetheart's house to a soldier attacking a town, and specific mention is made of the need to avoid the watchmen (see Johnston, 1983, 6; DGIA 218). And Le Roman de la Rose contains an extended allegory in which the lover attacks a castle built by Jalousie to guard the rose. In the first part by Guillaume de Lorris four gatekeepers are referred to, but in the second part by Jean de Meun one of them is made captain of the other three, who are referred to as 'ces trois portiers'. These are certainly possible literary sources, and other French examples are noted by Edwards (219–20), but it is equally possible that Dafydd created the imagery of his poem independently on the basis of his experience of the fortified towns of Wales.
The three gatekeepers of this poem correspond to material in two triads in the 'Trioedd Serch', see R. Geraint Gruffydd, 'Cywyddau triawdaidd Dafydd ap Gwilym: rhai sylwadau', YB xiii (1985), 167–77, and Huw M. Edwards, 'Y Trioedd Serch', Dwned 1 (1995), 25–39. Two of them are included in 'Tri anghy[d]fod serch' (quoted from Edwards's edition of the earliest text in a 15th-century hand in the Book of the Anchorite of Llanddewibrefi): noswaith lawog a dôr wiche[di]g a gwrach g[wyn]fannus ymgeingar ('a rainy night and a sqeaking door and a querulous cantakerous hag'). And the dog is included in Tri amhorth serchog: ysbeilwynt hydref a chi tom llafarddrud a brawd [pre]gethwr ('Three hinderances of a lover: a ravaging autumn wind and a noisy fierce cur and a preaching friar'). It is clear that these triads belonged to a fairly fluid tradition, and the three gatekeepers of the poem occur together in a version of the triad 'Tri amhorth serchog' quoted in 'Trwstaneiddiwch Gruffydd ab Adda ab Dafydd' (AP 33): kostog tom llafarddrwg, a dor drom wichiedig, a gwrach glwyfys ymgeingar, ag mewn gwely chweinllyd ('a nasty noisy cur, and a heavy aqeaking door, and a diseased cantakerous hag in a flea-infested bed'). The same triad occurs in the text of the cywydd 'Mi a gerddais wyth milltir' (A109) found in C 7 (quoted by Gruffydd, YB xiii, 173–4):
Tripheth nid ydyn' unrhyw, Tri anfoddog serchog syw: Dôr wichiennydd, drymwydd drom, A gwrach wegilgrach gulgrom A chi tom — o chotymid Ei flew byddai lew o lid!
All this material is clearly very relevant to 'Tri Phorthor Eiddig', but the question is are these remains of an old tradition current in Dafydd ap Gwilym's time, or did this poem and others similar to it form the basis for the 'Trioedd Serch'? Edwards (p. 38) favours the second possiility; one detail which supports his view is the word llafarddrud describing the dog in this poem and in the earliest version of the 'Trioedd Serch'. Nevertheless, older triadic material may be relevant to this poem, since as R. Geraint Gruffydd noted (p. 171), the three gatekeepers could be an echo of the triad 'Tri phorthawr Gwaith Perllan Fangor' in Trioedd Ynys Prydain (TYP no. 60).