2.  Your fate was unavoidable, however unfair it seemed.  As in the case of Oedipus, son of King Laius and queen Jocasta of Thebes.

3. The Warning!  An Oracle said Oedipus would kill his father and Marry his mother, so Laius exposed him on a mountain to die so it could not come true.

4. The Escape!  A shepherd found the baby and took him to Corinth where the King and Queen took pity on him.  He believed that these were his real parents.  When he heard the prophecy he ran away hoping to avoid his fate.

5. The prophecy comes true.  On the road, Oedipus quarrelled with a man he met. Neither would step out of the others way.  There was a fight and Oedipus killed him.  He did not know it, but the man was Laius (his true father) So part of the prophecy had come true.

6.  Near Thebes, Oedipus met the Sphinx, a beast with a woman's head, a lion’s body, serpents tail and eagles wings.  She asked passers by a riddle.

7. The Riddle “What goes on four legs in the morning, two at midday and three in the evenings, and is weakest when it has most legs”

8.  She killed anyone who could not answer.  No one had ever escaped until Oedipus answered correctly.  The Sphinx flung herself over a cliff in humiliation.

9.  The Thebians were delighted and made Oedipus king, as Laius was dead.  He married the dead kings wife, Jocasta, and so unknowingly fulfilled the other half of the prophecy.

10.  All went well for a while, but then a plague struck thebes.  The Oracle said the only cure was to avenge Laius’s death.  Oedipus cursed the murderer not knowing it was himself.

11.  The seer, Tiresias revealed the truth and enquiries in Corinth confirmed it.

12.  Jocasta hanged herself in shame and Oedipus blinded himself with her broach pin.  He left Thebes with his daughter Antigone, and died near Athens.  Theseus buried him honourably.

13.  Vegetable Oedipus  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NydK PClhYgM