There be some sports are painful, and their labour
Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me as odious, but
The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead
And makes my labours pleasures. O, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father’s crabbed,
And he’s composed of harshness.
– William Shakespeare
The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 1. Having been enslaved by and put to work by Prospero, Ferdinand walks on stage carrying a heavy log. At first he complaints about the pain of his labor, but then says that some forms of work are "nobly undergone," and reveals that his love for Miranda is what drives him and makes his work pleasurable. She is ten times more gentle than her father, he says.