This Too Shall Pass

The king had everything a king could want, and he could not sleep.

His palace stood among gardens of roses and running water. His treasury was full. His armies had won every battle in living memory. And yet, night after night, he lay awake under the painted ceiling of his bedroom, turning from one side to the other.

When things went well, he was so happy that he was afraid of losing it all. When things went badly, he was so miserable that he could not believe they would ever be good again. He swung between the two like a lamp in the wind.

The king's question

One morning he called all his wise men to the great hall.

There were scholars with long white beards, astrologers with charts of the stars, poets, judges and doctors. They bowed low and waited.

"I want you to find me something," said the king. "A few words. Words that will make me happy when I am sad, and that will make me think again when I am too happy. Words that will be true at every moment of my life, whatever happens. Have them engraved on a ring, so that I can carry them always."

The wise men looked at one another. Then they bowed and went away to think.

Days of searching

They searched for days. They read through the great books in the royal library. They argued late into the night over lamps and cups of tea. They wrote down sayings by the hundred, and crossed them out again.

A poem that would cheer a sad man only sounded hollow to a happy one. A warning that would humble a proud man would crush a man already in despair. Nothing was true at every moment. Nothing fitted both.

At last, worn out, one of them went to see an old dervish who lived alone on the edge of the city. He was a poor man, who owned little more than his cloak and his bowl, but people said he saw clearly.

The dervish listened to the whole problem. Then he smiled, and asked for a little time.

The plain ring

A few days later, the dervish came to the palace.

He did not bring a scroll or a book. He brought a small cloth bundle, which he unwrapped in front of the king. Inside was a ring. It was not gold, and it had no jewel. It was a simple band of plain metal.

"Here are your words, Your Majesty," said the dervish. "But I ask one thing. Do not read them now. Read them only when you are in great trouble, or in great joy."

The king frowned. He was not used to being told to wait. But something in the old man's face made him agree. He slipped the ring onto his finger, and the dervish went home.

The darkest day

Not long after, war came.

An enemy army crossed the border, larger than any the king had faced before. His generals were defeated. His cities fell, one after another. At last the king himself had to flee from his own capital, riding hard through the night with a handful of loyal men, while the enemy horsemen came behind.

They rode into the mountains, until the horses could go no further. The king hid among the rocks at the edge of a cliff, with nothing but the clothes on his back. Below him he could hear hoofbeats coming up the path.

He had lost his palace, his kingdom and everything he owned. He had never felt so alone.

Then he remembered the ring.

He turned it on his finger, and for the first time he read what the dervish had engraved inside it. It was very short.

This too shall pass.

The king sat very still. Then he breathed out slowly. The hoofbeats came closer, and then, at the bottom of the path, they turned away down another track, and faded into the night.

The happiest day

Over the following months, the king gathered his scattered soldiers. Friends who had thought him lost came to his side. Little by little, he won back his cities, and at last he rode back into his own capital at the head of his army.

The streets were full of cheering people. Flowers were thrown from every rooftop. Drums and trumpets sounded, and the whole city danced. It was the greatest day of the king's life, and his heart swelled with pride.

Then, as he rode through the gates, he felt the plain ring on his finger. He looked down at it, and he remembered.

This too shall pass.

The pride went out of him. Not the gladness, but the pride. He looked at the cheering crowds, and at the ruined houses still standing among them, and he understood that this day, too, would end, and that what he did with it was what mattered.

It is said that he ruled more gently after that. And that for the rest of his life, he never once took off the ring.

About this story

This tale is told across the Persian-speaking world and in Sufi tradition, and in Jewish folklore it is told of King Solomon. The phrase became famous in English in the nineteenth century, and Abraham Lincoln retold the story in a speech in 1859. The details change with every teller, but the words on the ring never change. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.