द्रोणं च भीष्मं च जयद्रथं च कर्णं तथाऽन्यानपि योधवीरान्।मया हतांस्त्वं जहि मा व्यथिष्ठा युध्यस्व जेतासि रणे सपत्नान्॥
droṇaṃ ca bhīṣmaṃ ca jayadrathaṃ cakarṇaṃ tathānyān api yodha-vīrānmayā hatāṃs tvaṃ jahi mā vyathiṣṭhāyudhyasva jetāsi raṇe sapatnān
Word by word
The verse says
Droṇa and Bhīṣma and Jayadratha, and Karṇa too, and the other warriors — they are already struck down by me. Strike, and do not be shaken. Fight. You will defeat your rivals in battle.
In plain words
He names them. One by one.
Droṇa taught Arjuna archery. Bhīṣma is the grandfather of the whole family.
And the instruction attached is two words: mā vyathiṣṭhāḥ — do not be shaken.
Where you've felt this · in family life
A nurse who has worked on the same ward for twenty years can hold a conversation with a frightened patient without her voice going anywhere. It is not that she stopped feeling it years ago. She found out that the steadiness is the part she can give, and that it is worth more than the feeling would be.
Going deeper
Being told not to be shaken while being shown exactly what to be shaken by is the hardest instruction in the book.
This is not consolation. Nobody is told the men will survive, or that their deaths do not matter, or that he will not mind. The names are read out specifically — the teacher, the grandfather — and the instruction follows immediately. It is the least sentimental moment in the Gita.
Whether that is admirable or appalling has been argued since the text was written, and the argument is honest on both sides.
What can be said is that it is consistent. From Chapter 2 onward the book has refused to tell Arjuna that his situation is better than it is. The steadiness being asked for here is not the absence of grief. It is the capacity to act accurately while grieving, which is a real thing that people do, and which the book has never once suggested is easy.