Annotate the following quotation from "Hamlet": “Let me not think on’t-Frailty, thy name is woman!"

This quotation comes from Hamlet's first great soliloquy in Act 1 scene 2 in which he rails against his mother's unseemly haste in re-marrying his uncle after his father's death.

I would firstly discuss the importance of this as being part of a soliloquy in which Hamlet expounds his thoughts directly to the audience rather than to another character.

The fuller context is:

"... and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, ...--married with my uncle"

It is important that Hamlet is unable to think about the speed with which Gertrude has re-married: it is the "within a month" which prompts the "Let me not think on't". This suggests that he is so disgusted with her that he cannot comprehend it at all.

The quotation shows a personification of the concept of "frailty" - by which Hamlet means fickleness and a lack of faith, a spiritual rather than physical weakness.

It also shows a generalisation of his anger: it is not simply Gertrude who is frail but "woman" suggesting a (to modern ears) unpleasant mysogyny which also comes out later in his conversations with Ophelia.

I would also point out the exclamation mark and caesura in the quotation. These break the flow of the poetry and grammatical structure indicating Hamlet's mental instability and fractured psychology, a feature of the entire soliloquy.