The Hamlet Project

Uh-oh. What in the heck is a rouse?
It falls between ‘gaming’ and ‘tennis.’
He has been overtaken in this – so
I’m going to guess that it is some kind of game.
Maybe like cat and mouse but rat and rouse
Or Bat and Moose. I would play a game called Bat and Moose.
It would just HAVE to be fun.
Before I started to think about it, I assumed ‘rouse’ rhymed with ‘cows’ and was just a fancy way to say rows, which is in itself a guarded way to say ‘fights.’
I imagined that Laertes was beaten in fancy French boxing when he was overtaken in his rouse. A Louis XIV fop is the ref. His long feather in his cap bows over and over again as the ref, dressed in his best silken breeches and coat makes the calls – counting how long the contestants stay down on the gilded mat.