Sanskrit
यथा नदीनां बहवोऽम्बुवेगाः समुद्रमेवाभिमुखा द्रवन्ति । तथा तवामी नरलोकवीराः विशन्ति वक्त्राण्यभिविज्वलन्ति ॥
yathā nadīnāṃ bahavo'mbuvegāḥ samudram evābhimukhā dravanti tathā tavāmī naralokavīrāḥ viśanti vaktrāṇy abhivijvalanti
Translation
As river-floods impetuously rush, Hurling their waters into ocean's lap, So fling themselves into Thy flaming mouths, In haste, these mighty men, these lords of earth.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The first of two similes that carry this stretch of the chapter, and it’s a curiously dignified one — rivers meeting the sea are not a horror image on their own, they’re one of the oldest Vedic pictures of natural, inevitable union. Grafting that picture onto warriors rushing to their deaths reframes the slaughter as something closer to law than to tragedy: water doesn’t choose to reach the ocean, and by this comparison, neither do these men choose anything either. The next verse switches similes entirely, from something that cannot help itself to something that actively destroys itself.