गाण्डीवं स्रंसते हस्तात्त्वक्चैव परिदह्यते।न च शक्नोम्यवस्थातुं भ्रमतीव च मे मनः॥
gāṇḍīvaṃ sraṃsate hastāt tvak caiva paridahyatena ca śaknomy avasthātuṃ bhramatīva ca me manaḥ
Word by word
The verse says
Gandiva slips from my hand, my skin is burning, I cannot keep standing, and my mind is reeling.
In plain words
The bow falls out of his grip.
Gandiva is not any bow. It is his bow, a divine weapon, the thing that makes him who he is. His hand has held it through every trial of his life, and now it is sliding out.
Then four more words: skin burning, cannot stand, mind whirling. He is going down.
Where you've felt this · in failure
A decision is being made at work that you think is wrong, and you have promised yourself you will say so at Thursday's meeting. Thursday comes. Your name is called and you do not stand up. There is no argument going on inside you. Deciding and doing have simply come apart, and you are on the wrong side of the gap.
Going deeper
Losing hold of Gandiva is the most eloquent thing in the chapter, and nobody comments on it.
Arjuna's identity is built on that bow. He won it, he has never been defeated carrying it, and his name is bound up with archery the way a musician's is with an instrument. When it slips, what is slipping is not just a weapon but his answer to the question of who he is.
The verse he uses of his mind, bhramati - whirling, going in circles - is the same root later used for the confusion Krishna's teaching removes. In Chapter 18, at the very end, Arjuna's closing words will be that his delusion is destroyed and he stands firm, sthito 'smi. Standing is precisely what he cannot do here.
The book has a shape, and this verse is one end of it. A man who cannot stand and has dropped his weapon, at the start. A man standing, with the weapon back in his hand, at the close.