Verb ending in -ん with positive meaning?

Question

I was watching an anime, and this is the context: prior to the series, the main character went in hiding after betraying her peers, since she was the only against a peace she deemed fake; while revealing herself and basically declaring war against her ex-peers, she says this:

今こそ雌伏の網よりいでて偽りの平穏を破らん

In the following I'm assuming いでて is 出{い}ず, since I found that as the only possible meaning.

I know ぬ - a negative ending - can be shortened to ん, so I'd translate that as "Now we'll leave this obscuring net and won't destroy this false peace", but it didn't make sense in the situation, and the English subtitles indeed were "We shall remove the shackles and destroy this sham of a truce".

For what's worth, Google Translate concurs in translating 偽りの平穏を破らん as "Break the false peace", while Weblio does not (its translation being "I do not break false peace").

I'm at a bit of a loss here: I can't find any reference to a form like 破らん being used in the positive, but given the situation I'm pretty sure that's the right translation, since the main character is basically declaring war and she has already stated she was against that false peace.

Answer 1

That ん isn't a shortening of ぬ, it's a shortening of the auxiliary む.

According to Classical Japanese rules, the negative ~ぬ is the 連体形 of ~ず. This means it is used to modify nouns. In particular, you cannot end a sentence with it, so that means that this ん cannot be an abbreviation of ~ぬ. In modern Japanese, the distinction between 連体形 and 終止形 has been lost, but in the past it mattered. I think a contracted ん in Classical Japanese is generally a contraction of ~む.

The auxiliary む is mostly used like the volitional is used in modern day Japanese. So you can think of it like 破ろう.

Some more info:

• What is the difference between the negative forms -ず and -ぬ?
• Wiktionary entry for ん