Definition of "toilsome"

‘And you, Sir knight,’ / (Said she) ‘that taken have this toylesome paine / For wretched woman […]!’

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

The whole of the interior of South Africa is, of course, one vast plateau at a considerable elevation, and all the main lines coming up from the coast have some toilsome climbing.

1940 July, “Notes and News: Timetables in South Africa”, in Railway Magazine, page 422