Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.83.19
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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matsyaḥ
—
fish
Matsya — the species used as svayaṁvara target. Also the name of the first Avatāra. The doubled resonance is intentional: piercing matsya for marriage is small-scale prefiguration of recognizing Matsya-Avatāra at the cosmic level.
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pārtha - īpsayā
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with the desire of obtaining Arjuna
Pārtha (son of Pṛthā, i.e., Arjuna) + īpsā (desire). The chapter explicitly references Draupadī's own marriage in the body of Lakṣmaṇā's narration — the queens are talking with their friend, not lecturing.
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ācchannaḥ
—
covered
Past participle of ā + √chad — to cover. The fish was concealed. Gauḍīya commentators read the concealment as deliberate testing of inner vision: the Lord too is ācchanna to ordinary sight, visible only by reflection in pure hearts.
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dṛśyate
—
was seen
Passive present of √dṛś — to see. The verb whose subject is only the reflection, not the fish itself. Gauḍīya parallel: in saṁsāra what is dṛśyate is only the ābhāsa; the satya is hidden. Only Bhagavān, who is both the satya and the one who hides it, can pierce.
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rājñi
—
O Queen
Vocative of rājñī. Lakṣmaṇā addresses Draupadī by her formal title throughout — a sister-queen's protocol. The intimacy of bhakti does not collapse the courtesy of rāja-bhāṣā.
Arjuna is famous as the most expert bowman. Why, then, could he not hit the fish target at Śrīmatī Lakṣmaṇā’s svayaṁvara ceremony just as he had done once before to win Draupadī? Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī explains: The target at Draupadī’s svayaṁvara had been covered only partially, so that a marksman could see it if he looked straight up the pillar on which it was placed. To shoot Lakṣmaṇā’s target, however, it was necessary to aim by looking up and down at the same time, an impossible feat for any mortal. Therefore only Kṛṣṇa could strike the target.
They, with hopes of attaining me (mad dhiyah), took up the bow with the arrow in that assembly (parsadi).
She describes the method. As (yathā) your father arranged for the test, so my father arranged in a similar way. As the fish was pierced Arjuna’s arrow (pārtheṣuṇā instead of pārthepṣayā), so the fish was pierced by Kṛṣṇa’s arrow. Though the fish could be seen by glancing upwards from the base of the pillar, though it could be seen, from far away one had to pierce a covering in order to pierce the fish. It was made more difficult to locate the fish because it rotated. But it was made more difficult to pierce by my father. The target could not be directly seen but only by a reflection in the water. The pillar was in the middle of water and one had to approach the column by going through water. One could not determine the whereabouts of the target before looking into the water.
She describes the method. As (yathā) your father arranged for the test, so my father arranged in a similar way. But there was a great difference. The fish (ayam) was placed along with the bow and arrow so that it was very difficult to pierce. Or what was arranged by your father (ayam) was difficult to detect, visible on top of a pillar above the water. This was arranged by my father. The fish could be seen in the water and not outside.
Bṛhatsena did not place the fish openly above, as Drupada had at Draupadī's svayaṁvara; he hid the fish from sight and put only its reflection in a pot of water below. Now the suitor must read the inverted image and shoot the unseen target. It is a sūtra for bhakti itself: the Lord is not visible directly; aim at the reflection in the still water of a pure heart.
At her father Drupada's svayaṁvara, Draupadī's hand was won by piercing a revolving fish-target while looking only at its reflection in oil below. Karṇa, Bhīṣma's grand-students, and all the assembled kings had tried; only Arjuna, disguised as a brāhmaṇa, succeeded.
Lakṣmaṇā here addresses Draupadī by referencing that very ceremony — pārtha-īpsayā, 'with the desire of obtaining Arjuna.' Her own contest was patterned on Draupadī's. The chapter's storytelling thus folds in on itself: one queen's marriage-story uses another queen's marriage as its frame of reference.
My note
Source: vedabase.io