I have the following sentence I'm trying to translate:  
暗く打ち寄せる波の下には、血に飢えた神々が目を **覚まさんとしていた** ……。  
I tried translating the sentence as follows:  
Surging from the dark waves, bloodthirsty gods **were trying to awaken**.  
I'm not entirely sure if my translation suffices, so I would appreciate any
help regarding that, however, my main concern is the way the verb 覚ます is
conjugated, I had never seen such a construction. Is it translated as _to try
to_ or something similar? and what is it called?
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2017-08-14T02:20:11.150
52286
2017-08-14T02:20:11.150
25409
question
grammar
What kind of construction is 覚まさんとしていた?