Dionysus, returning from India a victor with his hosts, met the Amazons once more towards the Ephesian coasts. O small-breasted, brilliant Amazons, will you never leave off attacking the Bull-foot, for whom the Charites weave ivy-garlands? Garlands and flutes. Oh, listen to the flutes! Oh, draw near, there is going to be sacrifice to the god of delight!
But the Amazons swept out of cover with bare limbs flashing and bronze spears lifted. O Dionysus! Iacchus! Iacchus! how fierce they are against you, fiercer than your own panthers. Ah, the shock of the enraged Amazons! Ah, elephants of the East, trumpeting round Dionysus!
They have fled again, lo! the Amazons have fled like a sudden ceasing of a hail-storm. They are gone, they are vanished. Ah no! here are some, suppliant in the temple. Pardon, Lord Dionysus! Oh, pardon!
But inveterate are the Amazons: over the sea, over the sea to Samos. In Samos shall be no cry of Iacchus! None shall cry: Come! Come in the spring-time! For Amazons range along the coast, inveterate; defy thee, Dionysus.
The god takes ship, and his dark-faced following, elephants stand in the boats. And the Amazons wail when they see again the long- nosed beasts bulk up. Ah, how will they devour us! Bitter, bitter the fight! Spare them not this time, Lord Dionysus! Bitter, bitter the fight! And bright-red Amazon blood spreads over the rocks and the earth, yet the last ones pierce the elephants. The rocks are torn with the piercing death-cries of elephants, the great and piercing cry of elephants, dying at the hands of the last of the Amazons, rips the island rocks.
Dionysus has conquered the Amazons. The elephants are dead. And the rocks of Samos, called Phloion, remain torn.