An Leukon Analysis

Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803) was a German poet and one of the best-known representatives of German Anacreonticism, a playfully light style of poetry in the middle of the 18th century with themes as friendship, wine, women and song, inspired by the ancient Greek poet Anacreon. He wrote “An Leukon” in 1764. The poem is a warning against putting things off until the next day. Although it contains references to the pleasures of life, it does not dwell on them but constantly repeats its warning in a lecturing tone.
Leucon is not a well-known character from Greek mythology. An encyclopaedia of Greek and Roman mythology from the turn to the twentieth century devotes less than half a column to him, despite its length of several thousand

The seemingly parallel structure “Rosen pflücke, Rosen blühn” is not parallel at all. The conjugation of “pflücken” (to pick or to pluck) indicates that the verb is either in the singular imperative mood, in the first-person singular present tense, or in the first- or third-person singular subjunctive mood (Konjunktiv I, indicating either indirect speech or a wish). The absence of a singular noun or pronoun in the sentence suggests the sentence expresses the command or request “pick roses!”, and the object “Rosen” precedes the imperative “pflücke”. The inversion corresponds to the sentence structure of the third verse, and thus makes the reading of the verb as an imperative even more plausible. “Blühn”, on the other hand, is a verb in the third-person plural present tense and describes the action of the roses – they bloom. Due to the paratactic sentence structure, it is difficult to understand the connection between the imperative and the declarative clause. Roses symbolise love, beauty or youth and their ephemerality. Perhaps the speaker asks the addressee, Leucon, to pick them while they still bloom, to enjoy them while they last. This interpretation would be coherent with the truism of the second verse, the warning that tomorrow is not today. The speaker then advises the addressee more directly to seize the moment as time is fleeting. The inversion in the fourth verse emphasises the adjective “flüchtig”