~~June 3, 2014~~

“This too shall pass” …. is an adage indicating that all material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary. The phrase seems to have originated in the writings of the medieval Persian Sufi poets, and is often attached to a fable of a great king who is humbled by the simple words.

Some versions of the fable, beginning with that of Attar of Nishapur, add the detail that the phrase is inscribed on a ring, which has the ability to make the happy man sad and the sad man happy. Jewish folklore often describes Solomon as giving or receiving the phrase.

The adage and associated fable were popular in the first half of the 19th century, appearing in a collection of tales by the English poet Edward Fitzgerald and being employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became president.~~History~~

The phrase appears in the works of Persian Sufi poets, such as Sanai and Attar of Nishapur. Attar records the fable of a powerful king who asks assembled wise men to create a ring that will make him happy when he is sad, and vice versa. After deliberation the sages hand him a simple ring with the words “This too will pass” etched on it, which has the desired effect.

Jewish folklore often casts Solomon as either the king humbled by the adage, or as the one who delivers it to another. Many versions of the folktale have been recorded by the Israel Folklore Archive at the University of Haifa. In some versions the phrase is simplified even further, appearing as only the Hebrew letters gimel, zayin, and yodh, which begin the words “Gam zeh ya’avor”, “this too shall pass.”

The story, generally attached to a nameless “Eastern monarch”, became popular in the West in the first half of the 19th century, appearing in American papers by at least as early as 1839. In 1852, the English poet Edward Fitzgerald included a brief version in his collection Polonius: A Collection of Wise Saws and Modern Instances. Fitzgerald’s unattributed version, titled “Solomon’s Seal”, describes a sultan requesting of King Solomon a sentence that would always be true in good times or bad; Solomon responds, “This too will pass away”.

~~SOURCE~~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass