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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.
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2019-09-24T17:23:12.643
72064
2020-08-18T00:59:35.390
2020-08-18T00:59:35.390
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question
grammar negation classical-japanese volitional-form
Verb ending in -ん with positive meaning?
That ん isn't a shortening of ぬ, it's a shortening of the auxiliary
[む](https://kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%82%80).

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?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/235/what-is-the-difference-between-the-negative-forms-%e3%81%9a-and-%e3%81%ac)
  * [Wiktionary entry for ん](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%93)
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2019-09-24T17:45:36.200
72066
2019-09-28T20:45:38.990
2019-09-28T20:45:38.990
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answer