These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

I find celebrity breakups equal parts upsetting and reassuring. If Brad and Angelina aren’t content, who is? What hope is there for monogamy if the two most attractive people on the planet grow tired of each other? This is a very superficial example, of course. But do you see the dilemma? On the flip side, if ever you feel inadequate for your partner, take solace in the membrance that even the hottest, funniest, smartest, richest people on the planet weren’t enough either.

I am very close to the story of Romeo & Juliet right now, as it’s a major part of the Dark Night Montage I’m currently working on. I’ll share with you the wisdom Friar Laurence offers the young lovers just prior to their exchange of vowels at the altar:

“These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder / Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness / and in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”

EF