bitter pill vs woe

bitter pill

noun
  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bitter, pill. 

woe

noun
  • A curse; a malediction. 

  • Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness. 

  • Calamity, trouble. 

How often have the words bitter pill and woe occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )