Sea-longing in Middle-Earth is in practically all instances also a longing for the Blessed Realm. Those Elves who did not follow that at first, or who, like the Noldor, were later affected by the opposite of it, desire for great new lands in Middle-Earth, later had to realize that the longing for Aman seems to be part of their nature.
Hence, the sea-longing of Legolas or Galadriel appears rather to be the exact opposite of desire for mortality.
Immortality may have become a curse, but only so because of the dwindling of the ages of the Elves, and more so because of the Doom of Mandos. The longing for the sea is there the longing for the passage into the West, a restoration of the status quo of former times which was not subject to change or mortality. It is leaving the world, but rest and peace are never desired to be achieved through death by those Elves which long for the Sea.
|