What does this quote illustrate? "These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder / Which as they kiss...

These
lines are spoken byto , in act 2, scene 6, just beforeget married. Friar Laurence is warning
Romeo not to be too rash, reckless, or extreme in the way that he loves .

When he refers to "these violent delights," Friar Laurence is referring to
the violent intensity with which Romeo and Juliet love one another. He warns Romeo that unless
he and Juliet learn to love one another more moderately, their love shall result in
"violent ends." Later in the play, we discover that this warning was prescient, as
Romeo and Juliet's love does indeed end in violence.

Friar Laurence also
compares Romeo and Juliet's love to "fire and powder." The image evoked here is of a
trail of gunpowder which, when set alight, becomes a trail of fire. Often there is an explosion
at the end of a gunpowder trail, and in this sense this image too foreshadows Romeo and Juliet's
fate. Their love is like a trail of gunpowder running throughout the play which leads,
inevitably, to an explosion. Just a few years after the play was first performed, a group of
Catholics tried to blow up the House of Lords with barrels of gunpowder. Thein the play to
"fire and powder" would have thus had a particularly strong resonance for audiences
watching the play at this time.

Continuing with the same theme of loving
recklessly, Friar Laurence then compares Romeo and Juliet's love to "the sweetest
honey," which, when eaten too greedily and too quickly, becomes "loathsome" and
can make one feel ill. In other words, Friar Laurence is saying that Romeo and Juliet are
feeding upon their love too greedily and too quickly, so it will make them ill and the love
"loathsome."

After comparing their love to a trail of gunpowder and
too much sweet honey, Friar Laurence tells Romeo to "love moderately"preserve the love
rather than destroy it. Romeo, of course, is too naive and too much overwhelmed by his first
experience of reciprocated love to heed Frair Laurence's advice. He continues to love violently
and greedily, and his love, accordingly, ends in violence.