For those who may have forgotten the myth of Nessus:
The King’s Attorney, the principal villain responsible for Edmond Dantes unjust incarceration for fourteen years, has been identifed in court as the father of a young man who admits having committed a murder. He has produced evidence that the King’s Attorney, took him as his illegitimate son, and buried him alive. As he leaves the court,
“he threw aside his magisterial robe, not out
of deference to etiquette, but because it was an unbearable
burden, a veritable garb of Nessus, insatiate in torture.

Here is the story of the coat of Nessus:


The casual way Ovid presents each metamorphosis creates a tone of acceptance and inevitability, fate. This was exhibited throughout book nine, and specifically in the second story. “The river, swollen by the winter’s rains and full of whirlpools, poured impassable.” (Ovid 202). Hercules seems to face an impressive warrior. He is on his way home and finds an obstacle, Nessus the centaur. “Nessus approached mighty in muscle.” This description makes the Centaur even more worrying and frightening. The repetition “dreading the river, dreading the centaur too” seems to intensify the atmosphere (Ovid 202). Even though the situation turned quickly in Hercules’ advantage, Nessus’ last thought leaves the reader with a worried impression of fate’s outcome: “I’ll not die unavenged” (Ovid 203). Nessus’ final action is to give Deianira a coat soaked in poison.
Later, Deianira is falsely informed that Hercules has been unfaithful. She sends the poisoned coat to Hercules via her servant Lichas. Hercules puts the coat on unwittingly and eventually dies. Fate is under each action here: the death of Nessus was necessary for the creation of the poisonous coat. The graphic death of Hercules is very upsetting, but made worthwhile by his promotion to god status.
Hercules’ end is not a simple one. Ovid makes his death horrifying and extraordinary. Since the first lines of the poem, the repeating “flame” is really consuming the hero. Despite his prayers, “the agony triumphed” like the invincible hero was defeated by a greater warrior. Then, the poet makes his agony even more atrocious. The colossal Hercules tries to “tear the fatal shirt away,” but he “tore his skin” and now “laid bare his lacerated muscles and huge bones.” Not only we get a bloody vision, but also an unbearable smell: “the flames licked inwards, greedy for his guts; dark perspiration streamed from every pore.”