Nanki-Poo has come back to Titipu to make a solemn and formal -- and thus public, likely -- declaration of his love for Yum-Yum. As a British gentleman, he would expect this kind of formal declaration to have a legal dimension and thus lead to marriage.

This sense of the word protest has a long and, in the OED, illustrious history in literature. Chaucer uses it in the Miller's Prologue to The Canterbury Tales; Shakespeare uses it in Two Gentlemen of Verona; Charles Dickens uses it in Nicholas Nickleby. Here's the example from the 1838 Nicholas Nickleby:

Many protestations of friendship, and expressions anticipative of the pleasure which must inevitably flow from so happy an acquaintance, were exchanged, and the visitors departed . . . . (xxviii)

This discussion is based on the definition of the word protestation in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which requires a little explanation.

To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.

To the homepage of this Mikado website.

Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.