A number of English translations are in print,
aged anytime back one hundred to one hundred fifty years.
Some of them truncated, suggesting
that the English translators
only had access to a greatly shortened German original.


O TEMPORA! O MORES!

This song was composed by a Theologue.

A jolly young musician,
While walking by the Nile,
O tempora! O mores!
Saw rising from the water
A big black crocodile,
O tempora! O mores!
Who wished him for a breakfast,
And who knows what might be,
Juvallera,
O tempo, tempo-ra!
But for the power that all must praise,
O Har-mo-ny!

Then quickly slipping out his
Violin from its case,
O tempora! O mores
He drew his bow across it
With skill and with grace,
O tempora! O mores!
And when a merry tune
He betook himself to play,
The hungry monster went
To dancing like a fay.

And in the sand he danced,
Around and around,
O tempora! O mores!
Till seven huge pyramids
Rose right up from the ground,
O tempora! O mores!
Now but for that good fiddle,
And skill to play it well,
No pyramid or fiddler
Could the story tell.



No translator identified.
--

from The American College Songster: A Collection of Songs, Glees and Melodies, sung by American Students; containing also popular American, English, Irish and German songs, Negro melodies, etc.; compiled for the use of students and lovers of student Music generally, by S. C. Andrews, Ann Arbor, Michigan: Sheehan & Co., 1876, page 117.

Note:
the tune is a different one
than the one most often printed in German books.
The tune difference
accounts for the way that the words change at the chorus.

A different tune ... this does somewhat thicken the plot.