न चैतद्विद्मः कतरन्नो गरीयो यद्वा जयेम यदि वा नो जयेयुः।यानेव हत्वा न जिजीविषाम स्तेऽवस्थिताः प्रमुखे धार्तराष्ट्राः॥
na caitadvidmaḥ kataranno garīyoyadvā jayema yadi vā no jayeyuḥyāneva hatvā na jijīviṣāmaste ’vasthitāḥ pramukhe dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ
Word by word
The verse says
And we do not even know which would be better - that we win, or that they win. The sons of Dhritarashtra stand in front of us, and if we killed them we would not want to go on living.
In plain words
Now he admits he does not know.
This is new. Everything in Chapter 1 was stated with confidence, even while it was borrowed. Here he says outright: I cannot tell which outcome is better.
And he gives the reason, which is devastating. Winning means killing the people who make life worth having. So victory and defeat have collapsed into the same thing.
Where you've felt this · in failure
You and a friend bought a small flat together five years ago, and now one of you needs the money out of it. There are two ways this ends: you buy her share and she feels squeezed, or she buys yours and you lose the place you live. You sit with both for a week and find you want neither. Whatever made that flat worth having is exactly what you would spend to keep it.
Going deeper
This verse is the hinge of Arjuna's collapse, and it is more honest than anything he said in Chapter 1.
He has run out of argument. He is not claiming the war is wrong any more. He is reporting that his machinery for deciding has stopped - the thing that ranks one outcome above another no longer works.
This is the state the Gita takes seriously. Not doubt about a fact, but a failure of the whole apparatus that turns facts into a decision. You can be well informed, clear-headed, and still find that nothing you know tells you what to do.
And it is why the next verse is possible. A man who knows which answer he wants asks for agreement. A man whose scales have broken asks to be taught. Verse 6 is the last thing Arjuna says as his own advocate.