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I'm translating a song as part of a project.  
What is ki used for? Is it a prefix for kokyou?  
Natsukashi ki kokyou

> 晴天の日の少々、感傷に浸る午後  
>  **懐かしき故郷** 夢見な理想郷  
>  忘れがちな嘘 あるまじきEmotion  
>  企みし今生の消せぬ怨霊の炎
CC BY-SA 3.0
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question
song-lyrics classical-japanese
What is the ki used for in this sentence? 懐かし き 故郷
In late middle Japanese, the actual class of い-adjectives was in fact
subdivided into 2 classes, namely ク-adjectives and シク-adjectives. There is
remnant of those adjectives even now, though there are mainly to be found in
novels or songs in order to add a touch of old.

Here, we have 懐かしき, it is the old 連体形 (the base you should use to modify a
noun or clause) of 懐かしい which was a シク-adjective. So here basically, you can
understand 懐かしき故郷 as 懐かしい故郷. They mean the same, but the variant with き is not
in current use anymore, save for artistic purposes.
CC BY-SA 3.0
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answer