What does 「なりき」 mean in this context?

Question

I came across the sentence 「宇宙KOMAなりき」in a Dragon Ball song. The context is like this:

回り磁極踊れば 
大地も空も 
世界は巡る 
宇宙KOMAなりき

The song lyrics are here: http://www.kget.jp/lyric/112532/KOMA_CHIHO

What can possibly mean なりき? My first guess was that it came from a verb (なりく？？) or be a な+Noun pattern. Or even なり＋気. What do you guys think?

Answer 1

「～～なりき」 in Classical Japanese is 「～～であった」 or more informally,　「～～だった」 in Modern Japanese.

It is a past-tense affirmation/declaration.

「なり」 is an affirmation auxiliary verb. 「き」 is an auxiliary verb denoting the past tense. It has nothing to do with 「気{き}」.

Thus, 「宇宙{うちゅう}KOMAなりき」 means:

"The universe was a top."

Again, in Modern Japanese, that would be 「宇宙はKOMAであった」