न चैतद्विद्मः कतरन्नो गरीयोयद्वा जयेम यदि वा नो जयेयुः ।यानेव हत्वा न जिजीविषामस्तेऽवस्थिताः प्रमुखे धार्तराष्ट्राः ॥
na caitadvidmaḥ kataranno garīyoyadvā jayema yadi vā no jayeyuḥ |yāneva hatvā na jijīviṣāmaste'vasthitāḥ pramukhe dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ ||
And we do not know which is better for us: that we should conquer them, or that they should conquer us. Those very people, the sons of Dhritarashtra, stand arrayed before us—and having killed them, we would not wish to live.
Explanation
Arjuna continues speaking to Krishna on the battlefield, voicing his confusion. He cannot tell whether victory or defeat would be the better outcome, since winning would mean killing his own kin, the sons of Dhritarashtra (the Kauravas), after which he would not want to live. The verse shows the moral paralysis that leads him to ask Krishna for guidance in the next verse.