After living for years on the mountaintops of joy and the depths of despair, the king tired of his life of extremes, and asked his advisors to bring him a magic object that would make him happy when he was sad, and sad when he was happy. He gave them six months.

His advisors retreated and spend many months labouring to create or find such an object. They searched the breadth of the country and searched the depths of the pages of their books of wisdom.

When the alloted time drew near, the advisors gathered in the king's hall, and the Grand Vizier came forward and presented the king with a plain gold ring.

The ring's inscription said

"This, too, shall pass. "