What is the conjugation of 「悲しきかな」?

Question

Saw this in a blog post: 「悲しきかな読書への愛を育むほどに、夢は現実から遠ざかる」 It seems like 「悲しきかな」is used as a na-adjective (形容動詞). Is this correct? I've never seen this form of adjective before, what would its conjugation be?

Answer 1

No, it is not an independent adjective, but can be divided as 悲しき + かな, where 悲しき is a classical 連体形 (pre-noun form) and かな is a particle

体言・活用語の連体形に付いて、感動・詠嘆を表す。…だなあ。

Preceded by nouns or pre-noun form, indicates being impressed/exclamation. Translated as だなあ.

So a modern version would be 悲しいなあ, meaning oh, how sad...