“Más valéis vos, Antona”: Worthy Wives in Lope, Tirso, and Cañizares

“Más valéis vos, Antona”: Worthy Wives in Lope, Tirso, and Cañizares

“Más valéis vos, Antona”: Worthy Wives in Lope, Tirso, and Cañizares
“Más valéis vos, Antona, que la corte toda.” The saying was well known in the waning years of the
sixteenth century (~1580-1605) to judge by its inclusion in López de Ubeda’s La pícara Justina.1 But its
theatrical manifestation in the early seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries seems not to have been
so much as a “dicho” but as a song or “refrán cantado”, appearing in print for the first time in Vicente
Espinel’s “Boda” according to Lara Garrido.2 Subsequent appearances as a full-blown song are found in
Lope’s El cuerdo en su casa,3 in his Más valéis vos, Antona, que la corte toda,4 in Tirso’s Antona García,5
and in Cañizares’s La heroica Antona García,6 constituting multiple (both lateral and vertical) versions of
the song, exercising in effect both intervocality and intertextuality.
Indeed, as Gustavo Umpierre has observed in general, in Lope’s plays the songs serve as “functional
units and as elements of composition, rather than as mere lyrical parentheses or decorative
embellishments” (2).7 The expression “Más valéis vos, Antona, que la corte toda,” and later the song,
convey a persistent message: that the humble and imperfect country lass is valued as highly by her own
as the grand lady is by the court. A second, ironic message is understood as well: that you can’t judge a
book by its cover; a seemingly lowly lass might really be a grand lady—or conversely, a seemingly grand
lady might really be a lowly lass, for clothes don’t make the woman. And just as important is a third
message: that a woman’s worth or value is determined by her actions as much as by her breeding. In
Lope’s two plays, the song underscores the first two messages, while in Tirso and Cañizares’s Antona
García plays, the third message is foregrounded.
Although the words of the sung refrain remain constant through the one hundred years between the
plays (usually sung at a wedding celebration), the historical context to which the action of each alludes is
one of external threat, to the house or to the realm.8 While Más valéis vos, Antona refers vaguely to
strained relations between the Kingdom of Navarre and France (specifically the Duchy of Brittany) in the
thirteenth or fourteenth century as a framing device to the plot, both Tirso’s Antona García and
Cañizares’s remake are based on historical characters and events. And both plays are written in
moments that make the re-telling of these events relevant to the contemporary audience. In this paper,
I will explore how, in these three plays, the refrain progressively takes on greater meaning and sends a
message of xenophobia, of patriotism, of the worthiness of wife and queen, and of the effectiveness of
women as defenders of hearth or homeland.
1
Cf. La picara Justina (Madrid 1605, with privilege dated 22 August 1604): “Y de quando en quando dauale [al
tamborino] golpezitos, y dezia: Más valeis vos, Antona, que la corte toda" (ed. J. Puyol y Alonso, I [Madrid, 1912],
p. 89). Puyol y Alonso writes: "Parece el principio de un cantar popular, y por su forma, diríase que es una variante
o imitación del que más adelante [p. 104] se llama cantar de Carmona" (ed. cit., III, 271).
2
Vicente Espinel: historia y antología. II, p. 487. The refrán appears in La pícara Justina, evidently for the first time
in print. There is a variant in this picaresque novel: “más valéis vos, Diego Gil, que otros cien mil”, which López de
Ubeda refers to as “el cantar de Carmona.” t. 3, pp 274ff.
3
According to Morley and Bruerton the play was probably written sometime between 1606 and 1612, but most
likely between 1606 and 1608.
4
Probably written between 1620 and 1623 according to Morely and Bruerton.
5
Ruth Lee Kennedy dates the play as 1621, but Margaret Wilson places it later: 1625.
6
Published in 1755, probably written in 1708 or 1709, given the fact that it premiered on October 3, 1709 at the
Cruz, according to Andioc.
7
Songs in the Plays of Lope de Vega: a Study of their Dramatic Function. In El cuerdo en su casa, the “traditional
dispute between Town (dramatic theme) and Country (lyric theme) *…+ is echoed in the serenading of Antona, the
farmer’s wife, by Don Fernando and Don Enrique. The traditional opposition is present in the song’s contrast
between the ‘bella labradora’ and the ladies of the Court. The refrain, ‘Más valéis vos, Antona,/que la corte toda’,
expresses the superiority of the Country and of its inhabitants over the Court or Town and its dwellers” (44-45).
8
Since El cuerdo en su casa lacks a specific historical setting, I will not include it in my exploration.