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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But look, the long row of black men over there - and the gently mourning youth in their midst.

Oh! He is dripping of blood!

Stop! Stop!

I want to heal his wounds with my lips!

What a fool I am, they are the wedding guests, my bridegroom amongst them.

Mytle crowns are hanging from his silky hair.

Quiet, they're coming..

Closer! closer!

Surrounded by snakes you walk, pale and gruesome!

And you glide in clouds like an angel.

Oh come, come down here to me!

I cannot reach you, gliding up!

And the floor is sinking.

Here are unfathomable crevices!

And mounds of corpses underneath me!

There, whole rows of drawn swords towards us!

And the souls of the slain move towards heaven, singing.

Ah! My bridal jewels!

Yes, the ring belongs surely on my finger.

But you arke bloody and bloken.

Oh! All this indicates joy!

There too is the marriage goblet filled with blood!

Oh woe! Oh woe!

She is sinking, dazed..

..down to the urn.

There is my heart!

Oh, Why have you torn it out of me?

And here it is bleeding and rotting!

(And around me it is emptied)

But no, how strange? Here it is beating.

And here it is beating too!

Exactly, it's beating as one!

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