Satisfied

Laurens is fulfilling his responsibilities as Hamilton’s best man:

Lin notes in Hamilton: A Revolution that the line was added because Anthony Ramos, Laurens' actor, “says it all the time” and makes it funny.

Historically, Laurens was actually stuck in Pennsylvania during Hamilton’s wedding. He was on British parole after being captured in South Carolina—the British hoped to have a British officer exchanged for him. Hamilton wrote this to Laurens:

I wish you were at liberty to transgress the bounds of Pensylvania. I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation. My Mistress is a good girl, and already loves you because I have told her you are a clever fellow and my friend; but mind, she loves you a l’americaine not a la françoise."

As usual, Hamilton is super saucy. The italicized English creates a bit of a double entendre saying that he wishes Laurens could transgress through space and witness Hamilton’s wedding, with consummation specifically invoking the wedding night, i.e. sexy times. However, Hamilton coyly retracts this subliminal invitation by saying that Eliza loves him in the American style not in the French style—Americans being characterized by their prudish Protestant origins and the French, then as now, stereotyped as epicurean decadents. French is, after all, the language of love. And there’s a reason why we still call the concept a ménage à trois…

Eliza and Alexander were married in December of 1780. At this point in Hamilton’s timeline, Angelica is single, but in actuality, Angelica was already married and had two children, Phillip and Kitty. John Barker Church “eloped with Angelica in 1777, and the Schuylers were predictably incensed.”

Had Angelica’s timeline not been shifted for the show, she probably wouldn’t have been called a “maid of honor” and referred to by her maiden name. 18th-century manners were very particular concerning titles; the genteel Laurens would likely have called her “the bride’s sister, Mrs. Church.”

It’s tradition at a wedding for the maid of honor to toast the groom, the best man to toast the bride (as Laurens has just finished doing), and the bride’s parents to toast the marriage and the couple. Angelica covers all of this in her toast, but she starts by toasting the groom, which is tradition.

These verses are sung in the same manner as R. Kelly’s verse in Kanye West’s “To The World.” Some would argue there’s a hint of Destiny Child’s “Say My Name” in the mix as well.

Originally seems a throwaway line, but throughout the course of the song, it’s revealed just how much she did for Eliza, and when it returns later in this song, it bears exponentially more meaning.

Angelica keeps this promise throughout the show, returning to Eliza and Alexander many times throughout Act II—physically in “Take A Break,” and “The Reynolds Pamphlet,”, but also as a compassionate presence in “Burn,” “It’s Quiet Uptown,” “The World Was Wide Enough,” and “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.”

This line is true even to today. Angelica Schuyler Church is buried in Trinity Churchyard, NYC—the same graveyard as Eliza and Alexander.

This line could be taken two different ways. In the context of the chorus' cheers to “the union” and “the revolution,” the line is a toast to the hope Hamilton and Eliza represent for the future of the country. The fact that Hamilton is a penniless orphan distinguished by revolutionary courage and Eliza the daughter of an aristocratic upper-crust family is another way that their union provides hope—and inspiration to ambitious young soldiers: that the Revolution is ushering in a more meritocratic, republican age, and that valor and merit can win distinction.

There’s also Angelica’s hope that Alexander provides for his family. Hamilton, being who he is, delivers mixed results on both counts.

Judging by the conversation she had with Hamilton earlier in the narrative but later in the song, this seems to be a three-pronged comment: a hope or perhaps a prayer that Hamilton will be satisfied with Eliza; a vaguely subtle plea to Hamilton to try to be satisfied; and a pointed (possibly slightly passive-aggressive, although not malicious…yet) acknowledgment that he probably won’t be satisfied.

Of course, we know that she’s right on that last point.

The implication here is that Angelica’s toast to the couple on their wedding night ended in “be satisfied,” which can be understood simply as a nice sentiment to express to the couple: ‘may your marriage satisfy you with all that could be desired’—happiness, fortune, kids, etc.

However, the wording also flatters Hamilton’s political ambitions, and wishes him luck with his endeavors toward his hope of creating the new nation. During the course of the song, the audience sees Alexander confess to Angelica that he has never been satisfied. So this toast is also a heartfelt encouragement from Angelica to her new brother-in-law.

However, it also acknowledges Angelica’s attraction to Alexander. This line in particular could be taken as a slight jab at their relationship that never happened.

This interlude gives the actors and the stage time to reset the scene to “Helpless.” The recording (as well as the show’s sound design) includes samples from that song to help along the audience’s imaginations, along with an echo of “Rewind” and Angelica’s recorded voice distantly singing “I remember that night, I just might—”, a lyric she hasn’t even sung yet.

The counter-clockwise spinning of the stage gives the audience the illusion that they are actually turning back the clock to the previous scene, as if rewinding on a tape deck or a turntable. The distorted and a-chronological sound design plays along with the turntable effect, as if Angelica herself is skipping or scratching as she reaches into her memories.

This skipping insistently repeats Angelica’s act of remembrance (“I remember that night I just might, I remember that night, I remember that”), suggesting that she’s been compulsively replaying that night in her memories, doubting and regretting her decision all the way up to this point during Eliza’s and Alex’s wedding night.

According to Ron Chernow on the Room Where It’s Happening Podcast, the “rewind” echo effect that accompanies the actors and ensemble as they physically rewind to “Helpless” originated from Miranda’s hip hop improv group Freestyle Love Supreme’s routines. Recalls Chernow,

I once asked Chris Jackson [where that rewind came from] because I’ve never seen anything like it in a Broadway show, and I think it was Chris who said to me that he’s part of Lin’s group Freestyle Love Supreme, where they take words suggested by the audience and then they improvise a narrative… Chris said what would happen [is] they would create a narrative on the spot and then suddenly they’ve got “rewind..rewind” and they would do the story over with a different ending. So this is kind of where it came from.

Throughout this first verse, you can hear a ghostly reprise of Hamilton and the boys yelling “ladies!” a la “A Winter’s Ball”, emphasizing that we are indeed in a flashback to the night that Angelica, Hamilton, and Eliza met.

This was confirmed by orchestrator Alex Lacamoire on Twitter

Miranda is playing with culture (Pop vs. 1800) here. They are literally soldier boys in the Revolutionary War effort, but the tone additionally alludes to the modern hip hop use of soldier to mean a young guy from the hood. They’re likely to see action in the streets, carry a gun, and run with a crew. Destiny’s Child liked themselves just such a soldier boy when the mood struck. See also the hit “Crank That” by Soulja Boy from 2007.

An additional allusion may be to “Soldier Boy,” a 60s hit written by Luther Dixon and Florence Greenberg and released as a single by The Shirelles. The song’s lyrics are a profession of the singer’s love for the titular soldier boy in which she promises to remain true to him while he’s away.

This recalls “A Winters Ball.” Angelica can see that the soldiers want to woo the women.

At first glance, the repetition of “dream” might seem like a lazy way to construct a rhyme. Angelica also does this elsewhere in this passage—"remember", “that night”, and “aflame” are all repeated and rhymed with themselves.

Shakespeare expert Cass Morris, however, does not think this is lazy at all. In an article comparing Miranda’s composition to the Bard, she argues that the repetition in this passage helps to develop Angelica’s character:

The verbiage of Miranda’s Angelica Schuyler, meanwhile, is all over the rhetorical map. She’s brilliant, but with an intense urgency — her mind fires at a million miles an hour, and her speech patterns show it…

So what you get is this bobbing effect, in and out of reality, in and out of memory, in and out of what was and what could have been. But it still ties up and ties together in the progression…of the kinds of repetition from beginning to middle to end, because Angelica ultimately has that kind of grip on herself. Her mind may race, but she has control of it.

This line could be a reference to a February 1790 letter from Angelica Church to Alexander Hamilton, in which she wrote:

I sometimes think you have now forgot me and that having seen me is like a dream which you can scarcely believe.

Angelica falls in love at first sight with Hamilton, just as her sister does back in “Helpless.”

Chernow says nothing of Angelica’s feelings—after all, she was a married woman at the time and probably would not have expressed her affection. However, he does say:

Starting with that first winter in Morristown, Hamilton was drawn almost magnetically to… Angelica, and spent the rest of his life beguiled by both Eliza and Angelica, calling them “my dear brunettes.”… The attraction between Hamilton and Angelica was so potent and obvious that many people assumed they were lovers. At the very least, theirs was a friendship of unusual ardor, and it seems plausible that Hamilton would have proposed to Angelica, not Eliza, if the older sister had been eligible.

This is a callback to “The world will never be the same”, found in “Alexander Hamilton,” later in “Guns and Ships,” and finally in “The World Was Wide Enough.” The world’s not the only thing Hamilton will irrevocably change…

A line that could have a couple different interpretations:

First of all, his frame could in some way betray the privations of his childhood and of life in the Continental army, as he was pretty short and scrawny. Though of course, his intelligence leaped out of him whenever he needed to get someone’s attention. George Washington’s war family affectionately called him the ‘Little Lion.’ Chronic childhood malnutrition, such as would have been caused by Hamilton’s poverty, often results in a smaller, slighter body type in adulthood.

Second of all, Angelica could be reacting two-fold to his intelligent eyes and his handsome physique, which would inspire “hunger pangs” in her, for him. Because, as we learned during “Helpless,” he’s a hottie and Eliza is not into sharing.

Third, it could be a reference to Hamilton’s ready and obvious ambition, as with “I’m young, scrappy, and hungry” in the opening, and Washington’s “it’s all right, you wanna fight, you’ve got a hunger” from “Right Hand Man.” Angelica obviously sees this too, as she brings it up during her later fundamental truths confession.

Any one of these, or all three, could be at play here, but the third element in particular shows the audience a major difference between Eliza and Angelica’s first reactions to Hamilton. Eliza sees his eyes and “drowns in them,” becomes “helpless.” These are very basic romantic feelings—akin to “he’s so dreamy.” Eliza thinks that Hamilton is a pretty face with gorgeous eyes. The brain, she doesn’t pretend to comprehend.

Angelica, on the other hand, instantly notices the raw intelligence behind the eyes before the physical attractiveness of them. Angelica instantly sees Hamilton’s brilliance and ambition before she sees anything else, and is as attracted to that as she is to anything else about him.

This introduction builds off of the way the show uses “hey” as a shorthand for flirtation. “Hi” becomes Angelica and Hamilton’s specific marker. When they see each other again in “Take a Break,” Hamilton will greet her again with another simple “Hi.”

On the surface, this line refers to the feeling of being lovestruck and forgetting who you are in the excitement.

This line also refers to the fundamental truth Angelica realizes later, that her familial responsibilities to marry rich prevent her from marrying this “urchin who can give [her] ideals.” When she first meets him, she forgets her last name and the obligations that come with it.

She doesn’t say explicitly what other parts are aflame, but we can make a pretty educated guess.

Also, at this part of the musical, Lafayette can be seen walking up to Angelica, but Hamilton dismisses him, and he talks to Angelica instead. If we know Hamilton, we know that he will always take what he wants. And here, he wants a relationship with Angelica, whether that be a romantic relationship or a platonic relationship.

Angelica might not think it’s a game, but Hamilton is definitely a “player:” Laurens, Angelica, Eliza, Maria Reynolds…

The last four lines build tension as Angelica becomes entranced by Alexander, and this line is the warning bells. Her first ‘fundamental truth’ is ringing in her head. Her family can literally not afford to trivialise her marriage opportunities. A night like this one might appear on the surface to be one merely of fun and flirting, but for women like Angelica the stakes are impossibly high.

“This is not a game” could also be a direct response to ‘Helpless’ in which Eliza faces almost none of the complications Angelica envisions in ‘Satisfied’, nor does she appear to even consider them. ‘Helpless’ slides through the couple’s entire courtship with little complication, whilst ‘Satisfied’ picks apart a few choice moments in one night, demonstrating again how Angelica’s marriage carries so much more weight with its social climb than Eliza’s.

Hamilton’s line could be taken as a crude come-on referring to sexual satisfaction. Angelica’s response implies she initially takes this to be the meaning. With a face like this, it’s hard not to:

In reality, this motif was borrowed from a letter from Angelica to Hamilton. It is Angelica, not Hamilton, who states in the first line,

You are happy my dear friend to find consolation in “words and thoughts.” I cannot be so easily satisfied."

“You forget yourself” could also be Angelica projecting her own feelings onto Alexander—she forgot her dang name upon their introduction.

Here’s another hunger-pang frame dude who claims that he’s never satisfied, and is actually well known for his feral tom cat persona.

Also connects to a line in Prince’s song “When Doves Cry”: “Maybe you’re just like my mother, she’s never satisfied.”

In “The Reynolds Pamphlet,” Angelica throws this concept of satisfaction back in Alexander’s face, so it is interesting to remember that it was Alexander who first brought it to words, wearing his unquenchable ambition as a badge of honor. Alexander sees this trait being what links him and Angelica, but it will be what ultimately drives them apart.

In the context of the perceived come-on, “Is that right?” takes on two different readings. One, of course, is that she’s getting past that perceived come-on and seeing Hamilton’s hunger for the all-encompassing, “non-stop” thing it is, and becoming more intrigued by it (which is the side of the line she ends up on).

The other, of course, is that she’s seeing his admission of never being satisfied for the tomcat-like, never-satisfied sexual appetite Hamilton is known for. He gets away with the nobler reading because of his characteristic smoothness, but Angelica is smart enough to answer him in a way that lets both meanings stand.

In fact, Eliza ended up being the one who was never satisfied. According to Chernow, when Eliza was an elderly widow, nearly 50 years after her husband’s death, this was observed by a visitor:

The old lady always paused before [a bust of Hamilton] in her tour of the rooms, and leaning on her cane, gazed and gazed as if she could never be satisfied.

Hear Miranda get choked up reading that passage:

No one is ever satisfied in this story—not Hamilton, not Angelica, not even Eliza.

Between these two lines you can hear a quick inhaling sound. That’s the ensemble reacting when Hamilton kisses Angelica’s hand and sets her heart “aflame.” Compared to Eliza’s reaction (“my heart went ‘BOOM’”), this is much more subtle and even more devastating.

Once again, Hamilton introduces himself using his own motif. He does not follow Angelica’s melody in the song. Rather, he reprises his introductory line.

In high society, there’s nothing more important than where your family is from. It tells who you know, your level of education, and your financial stability.

He knows this as well, hence the avoidance of the question and a quick change of topic.

Also, Alexander not only introduced himself to Angelica to the tune of his own song, but here, she matches him, an indication that they can in fact match wits, as she says.

PROPOSED SUGGESTION: Actually, if you listen to the conversation (like eighty times I’ll admit), she’s been matching him from the go. “You’re like me…” (tonal shift up in the middle) “Is that right? (again a tonal shift, staying up this time, challenging him with a question). This continues when he answers her question, fast paced when it’s only eight syllables. She echoes and enhances it by softening it while adding an additional syllable to account for his addition in the word "satisfied”. His motif introduces a new rhythm, but they’ve been dancing, posturing if you will, from the start.

This line recalls the opening number, and reiterates Alexander’s ambition and drive. Whereas that number was an overture, being told with the benefit of hindsight, here we see that Alexander is just as self-assured (perhaps arrogant) in the moment, certain in the knowledge that he is destined for great things.

The rhythm references—and is almost identical to—Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass.”

Angelica rapping, and with such great proficiency, indicates that she really is on Alexander’s “level”—they both do really fast raps and in some way this could be used as an indication of their similar ways of thinking. Neither Eliza nor Peggy nor any other woman in the play raps—this sets Angelica apart as someone who can “match wits”. Not that Eliza isn’t smart, but there are different kinds of intelligence at play.

For instance, though Eliza doesn’t rap, she does beatbox. And why do people beatbox? Well, sometimes they do it just for fun, but often people beatbox to provide a beat for someone else to rap over. That’s how Eliza is smart. She’s emotionally intelligent and good at supporting other people.

There’s also a tragic irony in her elated “What the hell is the catch?”, as she realises the answer only a few seconds later: She cannot marry him.

Ben Franklin, founding father not appearing in this musical, is famously reported to have performed the Key Experiment while investigating the nature of lightning and electricity.

When Angelica says, “You see it, right,” just one of several lanterns hanging from the lighting grid lights up. You can just feel how electric their meeting was.

This is Hamilton’s only surviving reference to Franklin. Lin-Manuel Miranda unearthed lyrics to an unfinished Franklin number the day before Hamilton performed to its first Broadway audience, finishing it that day and teasing future directors that they could “try to jam it in the revival when I’m dead.”

He released a recording of a complete “Ben Franklin’s Song,” in collaboration with The Decemberists, as part of the Hamildrops project in December 2017.

…and yet in that short time, she completely fell for him.

This obviously isn’t Angelica being shallow since, well, it’s Angelica. It seems more likely to be a reinforcement of just how intelligent and witty Hamilton is, that in two minutes, maybe three minutes he can woo someone as hard to impress as Angelica, as well as proving what Burr said about him earlier about him being “reliable with the ladies”.

Perhaps that earlier moment during “A Winter’s Ball” was to set up Hamilton’s flirting skills in order for this to make sense, since before then we hadn’t seen him flirt with anyone besides Laurens possibly…okay, probably.

Here comes a rapid lyrical internal rhyme with “three minutes” and “agreement it’s” and “dream and it’s.” The closeness of the rhymes combines with the upward swell of Angelica’s notes to convey the giddiness that she’s experiencing, but the fact that she stays on beat with perfect pronunciation shows how quick her mind truly is. Even at her most emotionally fanciful, she’s still got herself under tight control.

They agree on the state of the colonies, that they need to go to war (although their motivation may be different). Angelica has said she has read Common Sense by Thomas Paine, a radical document proposing revolution (see “The Schuyler Sisters”). Alexander has said that he wants a war, because it is the only way he will rise above his station (See “Aaron Burr, Sir”).

Paine’s work dealt extensively with the origins of government and the unjust nature of hereditary monarchy. It’s fitting, then, that Angelica has previously quoted Jefferson’s assertion that “all men are created equal” (though she seeks to amend the exclusion of women there). For her, then, war seems to be a way to address matters of social inequality, though as the daughter of a wealthy man she has arguably benefited from the class system of the time.

Perhaps it is ironic, then, that Alexander, who desperately wants to rise above the circumstances of his birth and does see war as an opportunity to do so, tends to frame his case for war not as a fight for equality but in terms of economics. He criticizes King George’s relentless taxing and spending, and expresses the need for the colonies to handle their own financial situation.

This is fitting with his past as a clerk and the head of a trading charter and his future as Secretary of the Treasury.

This is a reference to earlier in the song where Angelica says that the night she and Hamilton met was “like a dream that you can’t quite place.”

In many ways, the “dream” indicates that their chemistry together is too good to be true, and foreshadows that, henceforth, any romantic relationship Angelica and Hamilton have shall remain confined to the subconscious.

Possibly a reference to flirting being widely regarded as something of a performance?

Leading to some decent irony, as neither Hamilton nor Angelica are performing here: Angelica spends this entire song pouring her heart out, and Hamilton’s declarations of never being satisfied are both more literal and more foreshadowing than Angelica or Eliza realise until rather too late.

Lovely wordplay here. Both words can mean the position of the body. Posture also means an attitude one puts on, or one’s image as perceived by others–Hamilton is flying above his station and making it up as he goes, socially. And he and Angelica are trying to impress each other as they flirt.

Stance is in contrast a principled position on a matter–Hamilton and Angelica have strong, similar views on the turbulent political scene.

In this line, Angelica is implying that Alexander is extremely forward and confident. She knows he is a smooth talker, but she wonders if she can uncover the genuine Alexander and not the confident facade he has put up.

Hamilton is, obviously, a genius. While “unimportant” isn’t necessarily the best way to cover up something you don’t want another person to know about, he’s brilliant enough that he should be able to cover up his past as much as he chooses and get away with it. And he can, to most people.

Angelica isn’t most people. She talks to him for “two minutes, maybe three minutes,” and she sees right through him. She really can match wits with him.

Alexander Hamilton’s reservations when it came to discussing his family or lack thereof likely stemmed from the fact that he was abandoned by his father at age ten, orphaned at age twelve, and born out of wedlock. All three lower his social status. It’s possible to imagine his reasoning for hiding his somewhat shameful past: he’s talking to the eldest daughter of one of the most prominent senators in the 13 Colonies. Hamilton better make a good impression if he wants to boost his political career.

Angelica picks up on some distinctly un-smooth motions from the usually-intense Alexander. Here, she shows an amount of insight that surpasses almost every other character in the musical. Washington knows Hamilton by his reputation and his use to the Revolution, his friends know him by his keen intellect. Angelica, however, sees the vulnerabilities that almost everyone else misses.

More anachronistic metaphor, as this phrase originates from early aviation parlance—“to fly by the seat of one’s trousers” meant to go up in the air without instruments or radio, and to essentially fly entirely by the feeling of the plane and the pilot’s intuition.

It’s come to mean going into a situation without experience or preparation—basically, making shit up as you go along as Hamilton is absolutely doing at this point both in his life and in this flirtation.

Of course, there’s a double-entendre here, too. We already know what else Hamilton does with the “seat of his pants.”

Eliza’s obsessed with Hamilton’s famously beautiful eyes, and Angelica seems rather fond of his face. Let’s add Chernow’s description:

We know he stood about five foot seven and had a fair complexion, auburn hair, rosy cheeks, and a wide, well-carved mouth. His nose, with its flaring nostrils and irregular line, was especially strong and striking, his jaw chiseled and combative. Slim and elegant, with thin shoulders and shapely legs, he walked with a buoyant lightness.

As well as historical accuracy, there’s a cheeky breaking of the fourth wall and a self-deprecating humor in these lines. Of course, it’s mostly Miranda himself who plays Hamilton—the line can be read as a bit of a boast. However, the following five words both confirm his mock-arrogance and make fun of it—Miranda does indeed “know it” because he’s written it into the play, but the second half of the line also digs at him for calling the character he’s playing “handsome.”

Hamilton was no older than 25 when he met the Schuylers and married Elizabeth, young enough that he might still have trouble growing facial hair.

Like the annotation directly above noted, this lyric might poke fun at Miranda himself. In an interview with The Guardian, the interviewer noted that “He seems a little embarrassed by his patchy facial hair.” Miranda himself goes on to say “This is just not shaving for two days, I have a very Puerto Rican face. I can’t grow a beard.”

Furthermore, the delivery of “peach fuzz” uses the same intonation as the chorus of KMD’s “Peachfuzz”:

This is another line with two implied meanings. The first is that Angelica wants to get him alone to start romancing. The other, as hinted at by her noting his youth (“peach fuzz”) and helplessness (“flying by the seat of his pants”), suggests that she wants to save him from his situation, which she does by introducing him to her sister Eliza.

Eliza’s reprising her chorus from “Helpless,” showing the concurrence of “Helpless” with “Satisfied.”

In addition, just like Alexander Hamilton often sings his name to his own melody and betrays how he’s out of tune with others, Eliza is in her own world here—she doesn’t see Angelica’s already hooked on Alexander.

Moreover, Angelica sees Eliza’s motif for the weakness that it is—Eliza is naive and passive, and wouldn’t dare to actively pursue Hamilton. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a person to be, but as an older sister, we see Angelica’s protective instincts come out here in full force.

They give Angelica a choice to make—she can do her sister a solid and introduce her to Hamilton, or she can ignore her familial instincts and pursue her own feelings. Eliza repeating “helpless” three times here helps Angelica realize this, and as she does, she also realizes three fundamental truths which make the ultimately make her choice for her…

There’s a parallel here between Angelica observing Eliza’s eyes and face and her earlier observation of Alexander’s eyes and face. It emphasizes her capability for empathy as well as her ability to draw quick, correct conclusions from a moment’s observation of someone’s expression and body language (even from across the room!). It also suggests that Alexander will be as important to her as her own sister—she may have just met him, but she’s already observing him very, very closely. (One might say that she has her eyes on him.)

As for what Eliza’s face and eyes look like, Chernow writes:

In 1787, Ralph Earl painted a perceptive portrait of Eliza Hamilton. It shows her with strikingly alert black eyes—the feature that most attracted Hamilton—that glowed with inner strength.

This line contrasts the “self-evident” truths about human equality that Angelica sings about in “The Schuyler Sisters,” with the harsher truths about class and wealth in 18th century society.

While many early Americans would have agreed with the sentiments in the Declaration of Independence in theory, Angelica would have been under extraordinary pressure to “marry up”—a “fundamental truth” that would seriously limit her choices, and her pursuit of happiness.

This exchange is an exact duplication of Angelica’s introduction of Hamilton to Eliza in the earlier “Helpless.” This repeated dialogue joins the “rewind” lyric and the reverse turntable staging as key cues to the audience that they are viewing a Rashomon-style retelling of the same story from a different character’s viewpoint.

The retelling of a story from multiple points of reference within the same work is most closely associated with the 1950 Kurosawa film, Rashomon; however, as a literary device, the concept goes back much further. The Bible’s four gospels of the New Testament tell the same story via different narrators. In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice multiple characters describe the same situation with a varying focus.

Common in pop culture, contemporary works from The Simpsons to How I Met Your Mother have employed this technique. A modern musical theater version of this appears in Jersey Boys as various members of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons describe the same evening’s events from different perspectives.

The familiarity of this storytelling style provides additional reinforcement for the overarching Hamilton theme that narrator bias impacts history or – “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.”

This is the first of many big count-offs in the show, all of which are about keeping things in mind and learning lessons. “Ten Duel Commandments”, in which Hamilton teaches Laurens how to duel, shows the number of things one needs to know in order to duel with anything resembling safety and later plausible deniability. In “Take a Break”, Eliza and Philip count together as she teaches him to play piano; later, he recites numbers in French to show off his memorization ability. And here, Angelica reminds herself of her many responsibilities to her family and her cynical knowledge of the political ramifications of courtship and marriage.

The company, facing Philip Schuyler in the background, serves as Angelica’s inner voice.

In real life, Angelica had already married John Barker Church in 1777, several years before she met Hamilton. He did become wealthy, but was initially considered an unsuitable match – he had fled England after killing a man in a duel. Angelica and Church eloped without her father’s consent.

John Church was a co-founding director (along with Aaron Burr) of the Manhattan Company, a bank that eventually became JP Morgan Chase. Church also dueled with Burr, though neither man was injured.

I actually forgot that Phillip had 15 children. But I think that my brain wanted me to forget because it’s stronger dramatically if societally she can’t marry you. And in reality, she was married when they met.

She was married when Hamilton came into the Schuyler sisters lives. Moreover, “Helpless” and “Satisfied” are a microcosm for the whole story which entirely depends on who tells it.

To me, it’s extremely effective to see the courtship from Eliza’s perspective, then rewind the whole thing and then tell it again. Angelica, while she and Hamilton are soul mates, she reads him in a second and knows she can’t marry him so she lets her sister marry him to keep him in her life. I definitely had to take a dramatic license.

This is actually historically inaccurate. Philip Schuyler had fifteen children with his spouse, Catherine Van Rensselaer, and many of them were sons. Among them was Philip Jeremiah Schuyler, who served in the United States House of Representatives.

Angelica knows that romantic relationships have political implications.

Yale Professor Joanne Freeman writes:

Political gossip – private discussion of revealing, immoral, or dangerous behavior learned and passed on through unofficial channels – was an “ordinary event of political drama” in the early republic. It was a means of practicing politics. When politicians gossiped, they sized up their enemies, formed alliances, and agreed on common goals.

Freeman later notes:

The power of gossip was its ability to savage one’s reputation now and forever, a double threat for the posterity-minded founding generation. Hamilton was thinking of both the present and the future when he tried to extricate himself from a 1791 blackmailing scheme … Indeed, gossip could so effectively destroy all time that some men collapsed the entire process into one word, referring to gossip as “fame.”

Miranda even had drinks with Freeman in November of 2015:

Miranda’s word choice here, or lack thereof, is also telling of both the writer and his character. “I’m the oldest and the wittiest” could have just as easily been “the oldest and the prettiest.” By omitting this lazy rhyme and using, instead, a word that values brains over beauty, Miranda displays his own wit as the writer as well as Angelica’s. She doesn’t care if she’s pretty or not because, damn it, she’s smart.

Alexander is an orphan without much money (one of the first things Angelica noticed about him), and in this era, a first-born daughter from a wealthy family was expected to marry a man of means. Even though Angelica loves Alexander, she is smart enough to know that it’s not the right match for her, for the sake of her whole family. She laughs because, ironically, it is the very characteristics that make her an appealing bride—her wit, passion and wealth—that are also keeping her from the man she loves.

Her decision demonstrates that she will always place duty and love for family over romance; she’ll choose Eliza every time.

We did not hear Angelica and Alexander’s introductory conversation during Eliza’s telling of the story (“Helpless”), but here we now know why Hamilton said “Schuyler?” in a questioning tone.

As Miranda says this line in the show, he makes a bunch of gestures signaling discomfort—scratching behind his ear, tilting his head, etc. Hamilton’s whole body reacts like he doesn’t want to hear what’s coming next. It’s a full-body “this is going to be awkward.”

It is interesting to note that the tone of Renée Elise Goldsberry’s voice changes when she speaks, “My sister” to Eliza, and then back again when she begins speaking to the audience. She goes from the fourth wall verse describing to the audience why she chooses to introduce Alexander to her sister and not pursue her own interests.

During this line, her voice is playful and almost comical, in contrast to her serious tone during her description to the audience. This portrays her love for Eliza, and her desire to disguise her true feelings for Alexander from her in order to protect her feelings. This change in tone is true during the track, and even more so on stage.

This line is the second time we see the meeting between Eliza and Alexander, and Eliza is the second daughter of the family, AND we’re about to hear Angelica’s second of the three truths she’s realized at the same time.

Lin-Manual Miranda; layers like lasagna.

Angelica is one of the daughters of General Philip Schuyler. At the time Alexander Hamilton met Eliza, Schuyler had just resigned from the Army after serving in north New York state during the American Revolution, and was serving in the Continental Congress. In addition, Ron Chernow writes the following in “Hamilton.”

Descended from an early Dutch settler who arrived in New York in 1650…, Schuyler was counted among those Hudson River squires who presided over huge tracts of land and ruled state politics. The Schuylers had intermarried with the families of many patroons or manor lords.

So, she’s the daughter of a prominent ex-general Congressman who has lots of inherited land and power. It’d elevate Hamilton’s status, seeing as Hamilton grew up in poverty.

Here Angelica implies that while she is worldly and wise, Eliza is credulous and naïve – though it is equally possible that Angelica meant she possesses a sharp wit, while Eliza is intelligent, but less adversarial and skeptical. It’s possible that Angelica is looking back and saying “Maybe I let Eliza have him because I couldn’t completely put aside the knowledge that he was going after me because of my father, and she’d be able to dismiss that in favor of how she feels.”

Angelica later refers to this same quality as trusting, but her protectiveness over Eliza doesn’t stop her from introducing Eliza and Alexander, as his lack of money and social status will be less of a problem for her younger sister, for whom marrying rich is not as much of a requirement.

In “Burn”, Angelica told Eliza to “be careful with that one,” as a warning about Alexander’s less noble intentions. However, Eliza – whether due to naïveté or romanticism, married him anyway.

Angelica also expresses her steadfast love for her sister by singing her name in a manner intended to recall the original musical motif, introduced in “The Schuyler Sisters,” with a different emotional tone.

In a way, she never was. Hamilton and Angelica were alike in more than just their quick wit,and it’s reflected musically and lyrically throughout the musical. The two of them were, in a sense, never satisfied.

As we learn later with Say No To This and The Reynolds Pamphlet, Hamilton cheats on Eliza with Maria Reynolds. Likewise, it is believed Angelica had an extramarital affair with Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton’s political rival.

There are even some historians who believe Angelica and Alexander did, in fact, have an affair together:

“…almost certainly Angelica Schuyler Church and Alexander Hamilton had an affair while they were together in New York after Elizabeth returned to her father’s mansion in New York to care for her four children and to give birth to her fifth.”

This point is controversial, and Chernow, the primary source text for the musical, believes it to be untrue, but the fact still remains that the two flirted heavily and had indiscretions outside of their relationship. In this way, neither of them were really ever satisfied in the sense Angelica is discussing here.

“Thank you for your service” is still a standard greeting used when meeting a veteran. There is, however, a growing backlash against the phrase, with some soldiers expressing that “thank you for your service” is mere patriotic gloss devoid of real thought about the nature of war.

As pimp lines go, this one leaves all the rest in the dust.

The line also follows Haiku form, but because of the subject matter is actually a Senryū. While haiku typically describe something in nature, senryū focus on people, and the characteristics that make them human. Many are satirical (often dark humor), but they also are used to express very personal emotions (love, regret, passion, etc.). This is an excellent example, as there is something extremely dark about the line – but it is ultimately a very touching sentiment.

Some listeners hear this line differently than they did in “Helpless,” but that is not the way that Goldsberry performs the line. She purposefully acts it out as similarly as possible. Any differences heard are entirely down to the new music and heartbreaking context that has been revealed in this song.

From Eliza’s perspective, she would consider this encouragement from her sister. But in the staging, you can see Goldsberry’s raised eyebrows—indicating her surprise at Hamilton jumping straight into wooing Eliza.

We have here the “Rule of Three” in action. It is a well-accepted rule of rhetoric, and of theatre, that things which come in threes are more powerful, more effective, and/or more satisfying. Thus, “three fundamental truths”.

Considering that her third reason focuses on her sister, the phrase “number three” may also refer to Angelica realizing that she is destined to be the third wheel in the budding relationship between Alexander and Eliza.

Reprised later in “The Reynolds Pamphlet” when Angelica returns after Alexander cheats on Eliza, to emphasize what a reprehensible thing he’s done.

This verse has some serious intervallic and rhythmic similarities to the chorus of Beyoncé’s “Ring The Alarm,” where she sings of her lover’s potential new flame:

She gon' be rockin' chinchilla coats, if I let you go
Hit in the house off the coast, if I let you go
She gon' take everything I own, if I let you go
I can’t let you go, damned if I let you go

Using “Ring The Alarm” to underscore this lyric creates some legit subtext. On the surface, we have Angelica professing her eternal loyalty to her sister, but when juxtaposed against Beyoncé’s melody, we see Angelica’s underlying feelings of anger and jealousy that another woman has landed her man.

This also confirms that Alexander can never be satisfied. That Alexander “will never find anyone as trusting or as kind” implies that Eliza is the epitome of the perfect wife; if she cannot satisfy Alexander, perhaps no one (not even Angelica) can.

Angelica’s ultimate decision is to bury her own feelings for the sake of her sister’s, knowing Eliza would do the same for her. She chooses to spare her sister that pain and instead shoulder it herself. Angelica highlights how much love the sisters have for each other, but also how much they’re alike.

This may also be a subtle reference to The Phantom of the Opera line featured in “Think of Me”:

Think of me, think of me waking
Silent and resigned

In reference to Eliza’s “that boy is mine” in “Helpless.” The callback is stronger when you remember that Eliza’s line itself is a reference to “The Boy is Mine,” in which Brandy and Monica argue about their claim over the same man.

In the Off-Broadway version of this song, the line is, “I would make him mine,” highlighting Angelica’s sense of control over the situation.

This line further reinforces the theme of how history depends on the person telling the story because it’s shaped and limited by their perspective. While the song as a whole functions as a retelling of “Helpless” from Angelica’s perspective, this line specifically undermines Hamilton’s brag in “A Winter’s Ball” of being so irresistible that for him, marrying a Schuyler sister is not “a question of if…[but] which one” he should pick. Contrary to Hamilton’s own belief and perspective, Angelica reveals here that he didn’t make the choice of which Schuyler sister he ended up with—she held that power, by introducing him to Eliza and never telling Eliza of her feelings for Hamilton.

Angelica sings this line with intensity, showing the length of her sacrifice and maybe even some regret. It also sounds like she’s trying to shake herself out of this idea that she could be with him, that Eliza wouldn’t protest. The previous three lines are her describing how Eliza would “silently resign,” had Angelica taken him instead. It’s tempting, but she won’t do it.

That the company joins her suggests that even outsiders would be able to predict Eliza’s feelings of sadness, if Angelica confessed her love for Alexander.

Eliza also loves Hamilton’s eyes, and many people who knew him described his eyes as striking.

For instance, Fisher Ames, one of Hamilton’s friends, and a fellow Federalist, said his eyes were “of a deep azure, eminently beautiful’.’

Angelica’s word choice of “romanticize” has two purposes. First, to romanticize the past when she looks back on what could have been if she wasn’t so quick to judge his social status. She also uses to the word to explain her romantic feelings towards Alexander despite his marriage to Eliza.

In addition, the use of assonance in the middle of verses as well as simple rhymes towards the end is incredibly interesting:

fantasize at night
Alexander’s eyes
romanticize what might
I hadn’t sized him
dear Eliza’s his wife
keep his eyes in my life

This line is interesting because it’s one of the only times Angelica says anything disparaging about her own intelligence. Earlier in “Satisfied”, she refers to herself as “the wittiest” rather than ‘the prettiest’; her rap in “The Schuyler Sisters” is essentially a celebration of her own intelligence. Here, Angelica regrets having “sized [Alexander] up so quickly”. She did this through no fault of her own; she was simply perceptive enough to read him. Throughout “Satisfied”, she comments on how she wishes her situation were different so she could have Alexander; here, she wishes she were less intelligent so she couldn’t have seen through him so easily.

She expresses, once again, her love for her sister, saying that “at least, if I can’t have him, he has the best wife possible”. Going back to the previous line, she discusses how she thinks the relationship may have blossomed if she hadn’t “sized him up so quickly”, aka judged Alexander with her brain, as opposed to her heart.

This previous line, combined with the highlighted one, is conveying a sense of justification for her sacrifice for Eliza. In Angelica’s eyes, desperately trying to make herself feel better about losing the love of her life, she thinks to herself about how Eliza would be a better wife anyway, and maybe if she had been more like Eliza (aka leading with her heart and not her brain, and trusting her romantic feelings for him and not logic), she would have Alexander, because if she was like Eliza, she wouldn’t have thought to give him up, because she would be too focused on her love for him.

She also realizes that, even though she doesn’t have Alexander, Eliza has him, and tells herself that it’s better this way. This line also has an undertone of Angelica’s mindset that she will not be able to bear Eliza being unhappy if she had Alexander. Angelica also may be scolding herself for being so skeptical.

Angelica is willing to take as much of Hamilton as she can. She might not be able to be with him romantically, but she can at least see him through her sister and that, for her, is enough despite the fact that she will never be fully satisfied with this.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t get to see him and his eyes as often as she hopes to here.

Angelica’s position here is reminiscent of another self-sacrificing leading lady who reluctantly helps her beloved find happiness with another woman—Les Misérables‘ Éponine. Like Angelica, Éponine watches Marius fall for Cosette and must find satisfaction in having loved him, if “only on [her] own.” After all, “he was never [hers] to lose.” Lin-Manuel Miranda clearly noticed the similarities; he writes in Hamilton: The Revolution (p. 85): “Oof. Tryin’ to out-Eponine Eponine up in this piece.”

Layers and layers with this hook.

Primarily, the line illustrates Angelica’s prescience: Angelica knows that Hamilton will not be completely fulfilled (intellectually or sexually) with Eliza alone.

On stage, Eliza and Hamilton walk away together, upstage and to the left, as Angelica starts to sing around “And I know…” As she continues, Hamilton looks back at her with some serious heat at this line. Oh, she knows he will never be satisfied. So do we all. Meow.

However, the line has some other subtleties lurking about as well:

Hamilton’s dalliance with Maria Reynolds, as a direct result of the above meaning (never sexually satisfied), will itself lead to demands of pecuniary “satisfaction” from her husband (see letters 15, 17, 19).

Furthermore, this song is also linked to the dueling themes throughout the show (see Angelica’s references to matching wits with Hamilton, and her own numbering system for her fundamental truths). Dueling was carried out so that honor could be satisfied—Laurens states “I’m satisfied” when asked if he’s alright with the outcome of the duel in “Meet Me Inside.” So Angelica’s last “he will never be satisfied” has even more meaning, as his need to satisfy his honor leads to the duel with Burr.

Angelica writes plainly to Hamilton on February 4, 1790, that

You are happy my dear friend to find consolation in “words and thoughts.” I cannot be so easily satisfied…. My fathers letters have releived me from the dread of having offended him. He speaks of you with so much pride and satisfaction, that if I did not love you as he does, I should be a little Jealous of his attachment."

Everyone is satisfied with Hamilton, whether it be Eliza or his father-in-law, yet Angelica and Hamilton are not satisfied with themselves.

We are back to where we started the song. But whereas before we thought Angelica was merely a happy sister giving a wedding day toast, we now know that she is in fact delivering her own eulogy of sorts, burying forever any chance of an Angelica/Hamilton romance that might finally satisfy her. The revelations we’ve experienced over the course of the song make our return to these lyrics, and this scene, much more poignant and meaningful.

In classical music and opera traditions, da capo arias bring back the beginning section of the song after a contrasting middle section (here, “Rewind Rewind”) with added meaning, emotion, scales, leaps, and runs. You see it, right?

Da capo actually means “from the head,” somewhat fitting for Angelica’s largely cerebral number.

Not only is the toast itself from Eliza’s (and now Hamilton’s) sister, but she has also given them the gift of introducing them to one another and stepping aside.

This is yet another point in which the depth of Eliza and Angelica’s relationship is alluded to. We see this before in “Helpless” and again throughout the play.

Also, the repetition of this line also highlights that she is not only always by Eliza’s side (as it reads in her first toast), but that she is also Hamilton’s sister now and in keeping both of them at her side she is keeping his eyes in her life. But there is a bittersweet tinge to this. She is “by [their] side”, i.e. sidelined, in the sense that she is not Hamilton’s wife, but only his “sister”. She will never be center of Hamilton’s life (or Eliza’s, for that matter).

Furthermore, it foreshadows when Angelica gives up on Hamilton after the Reynolds Pamphlet.

Here Angelica’s reprise of the toast becomes a wail, as she sings in a higher register with a much greater intensity. She’s in effect smiling through her tears, as she toasts her sister’s wedding while lamenting the loss of Hamilton…

In addition, Angelica is cheering on the union of the 13 colonies to form the United States, which Hamilton plays a pivotal part in. This, too, is a boundary between Angelica and Alexander (and Eliza), as Angelica moves overseas just as the new country is being developed.

This line could be taken two different ways. In the context of the chorus' cheers to “the union” and “the revolution,” the line is a toast to the hope Hamilton and Eliza represent for the future of the country. The fact that Hamilton is a penniless orphan distinguished by revolutionary courage and Eliza the daughter of an aristocratic upper-crust family is another way that their union provides hope—and inspiration to ambitious young soldiers: that the Revolution is ushering in a more meritocratic, republican age, and that valor and merit can win distinction.

There’s also Angelica’s hope that Alexander provides for his family. Hamilton, being who he is, delivers mixed results on both counts.

Judging by the conversation she had with Hamilton earlier in the narrative but later in the song, this seems to be a three-pronged comment: a hope or perhaps a prayer that Hamilton will be satisfied with Eliza; a vaguely subtle plea to Hamilton to try to be satisfied; and a pointed (possibly slightly passive-aggressive, although not malicious…yet) acknowledgment that he probably won’t be satisfied.

Of course, we know that she’s right on that last point.

While the ensemble is repeating ‘Be satisfied’ while Angelica sings through her line, it is as if they are telling HER to be satisfied. Satisfied with the fact that she didn’t get Hamilton and comforted with the thought that Eliza will be happy. Which, according to her appearance in ‘The Reynolds Pamphlet’, is her one goal in life. She did choose Eliza’s happiness over hers. Every time.

She was happy as his bride, but the next things we hear from her are imploring him to stay alive and asking him to let her in the narrative. Marrying was easy, marriages are harder.

Eliza is satisfied (“Stay Alive”), but, as alluded to in “Take a Break,” Angelica and Alexander are like Lady Macbeth and Macbeth in the way that they are never satisfied.

Layers and layers with this hook.

Primarily, the line illustrates Angelica’s prescience: Angelica knows that Hamilton will not be completely fulfilled (intellectually or sexually) with Eliza alone.

On stage, Eliza and Hamilton walk away together, upstage and to the left, as Angelica starts to sing around “And I know…” As she continues, Hamilton looks back at her with some serious heat at this line. Oh, she knows he will never be satisfied. So do we all. Meow.

However, the line has some other subtleties lurking about as well:

Hamilton’s dalliance with Maria Reynolds, as a direct result of the above meaning (never sexually satisfied), will itself lead to demands of pecuniary “satisfaction” from her husband (see letters 15, 17, 19).

Furthermore, this song is also linked to the dueling themes throughout the show (see Angelica’s references to matching wits with Hamilton, and her own numbering system for her fundamental truths). Dueling was carried out so that honor could be satisfied—Laurens states “I’m satisfied” when asked if he’s alright with the outcome of the duel in “Meet Me Inside.” So Angelica’s last “he will never be satisfied” has even more meaning, as his need to satisfy his honor leads to the duel with Burr.

Angelica writes plainly to Hamilton on February 4, 1790, that

You are happy my dear friend to find consolation in “words and thoughts.” I cannot be so easily satisfied…. My fathers letters have releived me from the dread of having offended him. He speaks of you with so much pride and satisfaction, that if I did not love you as he does, I should be a little Jealous of his attachment."

Everyone is satisfied with Hamilton, whether it be Eliza or his father-in-law, yet Angelica and Hamilton are not satisfied with themselves.