The First Graphic Novel - 1783
'Lenardo and Blandine' by Joseph Franz von Goez
(pronounced 'yozeff frunts fon goats/guts')

(translation by Andy Bleck, Nov. 2007)

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Lenardo, where are you!

Come, come, with your love.

And chase away the terrors of the night.

Oh, the night was cruel.

More cruel than the long daytime yesterday, when I didn't see my husband.

My eyes were searching everywhere.

And none was met by yours.

Where did you hide on that first blessed morning after our wedding?

Oh, how often have the first rays of sunshine lightened upon you like someone transfigured.

When you were galloping near, hill after hill

so happy, so beautifully rustic among the dark green shadows preceding you.

The rows of bower arches.

And all the fruit trees blinking through.

And reaching the orange blossoms under my window, you refresh and revive the dear fruits.

And with your eyes looking up...

...me!

Oh, the joy of life, how it has taken hold of my heart with those blissful looks.

What solace the rising sun to my lingering lovesick yearning.

It pushed away crowns and treasures...

... and bid you come.

Soon, soon it's midnight.

Beautiful as Lenardo.

But, how you wither?

Come back to live on these breasts.

Still he hasn't come, and it is so close to the appointed hour.

Oh, how terribly gloomy.

Not one little comforting star on all the sky.

And how the wind is rushing in stifling stormclouds.

All the landscape as if dead.

Croaking toads instead of nightingales.

And my beloved still not here!

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