Dear Marcia,

I'm afraid I was responding a bit satirically to the idea that Eliot was under
no moral or ethical responsibility to Emily Hale despite having continued a
relationship with her for 30 years.  It was not a response to any lines in
poetry.

For the record, I have never said he had any obligation to marry Hale, only
to treat her with some dignity and decency.  That does not include having
her and Mary Trevelyan in Edinburgh the same week of the opening of The
Cocktail Party, for example, and taking both to the play on different nights,
while neither knew of the other.  It also does not include letting her know
about his marriage after the fact though he knew she believed he would
marry her if anyone.  I also never said he had an obligation to stay married
to Vivienne given the horrors of their mutual destruction of each other; I
said he did it in an unconscionable way.
Nancy


Date sent:              Sun, 29 Sep 2002 10:53:21 -0400
Send reply to:          "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum." <[log in to unmask]>
From:                   Marcia Karp <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: Sweeney Agonistes and the Gottas
To:                     [log in to unmask]

Nancy Gish wrote:

> The line about what a man's gotta do was not
> Eliot of course.  It was about the claim someone made about Eliot.

Dear Nancy,
    Perhaps "We all gotta do what we gotta do" is what was gnawing at
you.
     From
Sweeney A. both are Sweeney speaking, very close to each other.
Jennifer
pointed out the first.


     I knew a man once did a girl in
     Any man might do a girl in
     Any man has to, needs to, wants to
     Once in a lifetime, do a girl in.
     Well he kept her there in a bath
     With a gallon of lysol in a bath


     Well here again that don’t apply
     But I’ve gotta use words when I talk to you.
     But here’s what I was going to say.
     He didn’t know if he was alive
       and the girl was dead
     He didn’t know if the girl was alive
       and he was dead
     He didn’t know if they were both alive
       or both were dead
     If he was alive then the milkman wasn’t
       and the rent-collector wasn’t
     And if they were alive then he was dead.
     There wasn’t any joint
     There wasn’t any joint
     For when you’re alone
     When you’re alone like he was alone
     You’re either or neither
     I tell you again it don’t apply
     Death or life or life or death
     Death is life and life is death
     I gotta use words when I talk to you
     But if you understand or if you don’t
     That’s nothing to me and nothing to you
     We all gotta do what we gotta do
     We’re gona sit here and drink this booze
     We’re gona sit here and have a tune
     We’re gona stay and we’re gona go
     And somebody’s gotta pay the rent