The Great Sea
Belegaer; the sea between Middle-earth and Aman
Definition
The Great Sea — in Sindarin Belegaer — is the vast ocean of the west that lies between the mortal lands of Middle-earth and the blessed realm of Aman: the “Sundering Sea” which no ship of the mortals might cross (save in the last ages) and across which the Elves passed to and fro, and by which Eärendil first sailed the track of the Sun. It is the sea of the great limits, the western gate of the world.
The Partition of the World
In the elder cosmology of the Ambarkanta the Great Sea ran, from north to south, down the middle of the flat world, dividing the western Ambar (Aman) from the eastern lands (Middle-earth); its northern ice (the Helcaraxë) joined the two frozen wastes, and its southern end narrowed toward the dark.
- Its coasts were the havens of the Sea-elves and of Men: the Havens of Sirion and Balar in the First Age, the Havens of Mithlond of the later age, and the western shore of Númenor looking ever toward the forbidden West.
- Under the Shadow the Great Sea grew perilous: the Enchanted Isles and the Shadowy Seas guarded Valinor from all approach, and after the Downfall of Númenor the world was bent, and the Sea became — for the mortal world — a round sea of an ordinary ocean; only the Elves’ “straight road” still crossed it to the vanished West.
In the Tale
The whole history is bound to this water: Morgoth’s fire above it at the end of the First Age, Eärendil’s voyage toward it to plead for the Valar, the fleets of the Númenóreans upon it, and the Grey Ships of the Elves that take leave of the shore upon it. “The longing for the Sea” — the sea-longing of the Eldar, and Ulmo’s love for both banks — is one of the great themes of the Silmarillion.
Significance
The Great Sea is the double image of the legendarium: the joy and pain of the separations — the veil between mortal and immortal — and the road of hope by which the estranged were reconciled. It is the western horizon of all the tales, at once boundary and bridge.