APAD: Be still, my beating heart

Meaning:

   `Be still, my beating heart' is an expression of excitement when seeing the

   object of one's romantic affections.

   

   Originally, it was used with the swooning earnestness of women's poetry of

   the Romantic period. Now, it is more often used ironically, about suitors who

   are indisputably unsuitable.

   

Background:

 

   `Beating heart' has long been used to denote breathless excitement. John

   Dryden used it with that meaning as early as 1697, in The works of Virgil:

   

     "When from the Goal they start, The Youthful Charioteers with beating

     Heart, Rush to the Race."

     

   `My beating heart' was a stock expression for 18th century novelists and

   poets. It is first recorded in Nicholas Rowe's Tamerlane, a tragedy, 1702:

   

     "My beating Heart Bounds with exulting motion."

     

   The earliest citation of the full `be still, my beating heart' comes from

   William Mountfort's Zelmane, 1705:

   

     "Ha! hold my Brain; be still my beating Heart."

     

   ...

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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I first heard of the line in college from Sting the singer: "Stop before you

start. Be still, my beating heart" which I thought was cool. I was quick on the

uptake: the song was cautioning me to steer the mind away from girls, focus on

study, and earn good grades by which I had always been judged. The advice fell

flat shortly, however. I forgot the rest of the song but that verse stuck. Its

words are simple and I have never suspected part of it has been a stock

expression 300+ years old.